In Defense of Special Interests
JAFFA, HARRY V.
In Defense of Special Interests Campaign finance reform is not just unnecessary; it's anti-constitutional. BY HARRY V. JAFFA IN THE PRESENT political silly season, no subject has generated more...
...BY HARRY V. JAFFA IN THE PRESENT political silly season, no subject has generated more heat and less light than that of campaign financing...
...Those who hold, and those who are without property, have ever formed distinct interests in society...
...Statesmanship consists in promoting this moderation to the point that the special interests in fact serve the public good...
...As the sign caught the eye of passers-by, they instinctively put their hands on their wallets, to the great advantage of the pickpockets...
...The interests that form the ruling coalition will each have to moderate its demands in order to be part of the coalition...
...Think of campaign finance reform legislation as another "Beware of Pickpockets" sign...
...He might have added that all the existing campaign finance laws are unconstitutional, and would have been held to be such, if the supreme Court had known its business...
...Do not lobbyists spend untold millions shaping the laws in their clients' interest...
...What about those infamous "special interests...
...In the famous tenth Federalist, James Madison framed the problem of dealing with "factions," a word which was a virtual synonym for what we call special interests...
...These questions are perfectly appropriate...
...To the extent that a government bureaucracy decides the allocation of resources of political speech, to that extent is the electoral process a reflection of the opinions of the government bureaucracy, and not of the people...
...The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government...
...Do not people who invest in candidates and parties expect a return on their investments...
...Yet it is notorious that every campaign finance law that has ever been passed has made it more difficult for challengers to unseat incumbents...
...The most notable example in American history of a campaign against special interests is Andrew Jackson's war against the second Bank of the United States...
...John McCain has practically made it the center of his drive for the presidency, and Al Gore and Bill Bradley have been close behind...
...Jackson's speeches describe in lurid terms a vast conspiracy of bankers against the common people...
...Why this right may be limited to $1,000 is never explained...
...Let us note that "the spirit of party and faction" is involved in "the necessary and ordinary operation of government...
...The reason lies in the First Amendment, which prohibits "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances...
...They obviously form part of the process by which "we the people" choose those who are to hold office under our authority...
...In a democracy, the people choose the government...
...But the rights of speech, press, assembly, and petition do not stand in isolation from each other...
...But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, . . . than it would be to wish the annihilation of air...
...The latent causes of faction," writes Madison, "are sown in the nature of man...
...Not the suppression of that spirit, but its emancipation, is what the Father of the Constitution promises...
...This of course was the intention of Jackson's closest adviser, Martin Van Buren of New York...
...Then and thereafter, campaigns against special interests have, more often than not, been camouflage for other special interests more shady and less defensible than those they oppose...
...Surely, we do not want to exclude the very rich from presidential politics, but neither do we want them to constitute a unique political class...
...Suppose some wealthy patron saw his own convictions better advanced by this younger man...
...Something very like this launched the careers of Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan...
...In the extended, federal republic of the United States, the very size of the country guarantees a number and variety of special interests so great that no one, or few combined, can form a majority...
...Yet the practical result of the destruction of the bank was the transfer of the financial capital of the country from Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, to Wall Street, New York...
...dent...
...The only public official who has consistently brought intelligence to bear upon the question is senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is not running for presiHarry V. Jaffa is a distinguished fellow at the Claremont Institute in Claremont, California...
...Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination...
...Suppose that there is someone out there with the soul of Abraham Lincoln, but as poor as Lincoln was at the outset of his career...
...What is amazing is that today no one seems aware that they were the subject of the most profound consideration by those who framed, and those who ratified, the Constitution...
...A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a monied interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views...
...It is this number and variety that ensures a republican statesman the freedom to seek that combination of interests that serves the public interest and advances the public good...
...How did this comport with good government...
...But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property...
...He has said, repeatedly and truly, that all the efforts to outlaw "soft money" violate the First Amendment...
...According to Madison, however, faction is an inevitable by-product of liberty, and to try to cure the evils of faction by abolishing liberty would be a "remedy . . . worse than the disease...
...The Supreme Court has held, reasonably, that the right to advance one's political opinions by the expenditure of one's own money is indissolubly linked to the right to advance them by one's personal speech...
...Hence Ross Perot or steve Forbes is permitted to spend $100,000,000 on himself—but he cannot give more than $1,000 to a gifted but impecunious younger politician, better able than himself to articulate his policies...
...This was certainly true in 1787, and it is much more true today...
...Their offices make incumbents familiar to voters, as well as providing means of ingratiating themselves, which their challengers must overcome...
...Any limit on political contributions is constitutionally suspect...
...The $1,000 limit is obviously designed to safeguard the advantages of incumbency...
...It is essential for the integrity of that process that those who hold office do not write laws telling the rest of us how to exercise our rights in deciding who next shall fill those offices...
...Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire...
...Incumbents of both major parties, as a political class, have conspired (as in McCain-Feingold) to make the hue and cry against "special interests" a pretext for protecting the existing power structure...
...Many years ago there was a sign in Grand Central Terminal in New York that said, "Beware of Pickpockets...
...Consider that, under current law, as interpreted by the Court, no limit may be placed on the amount of a candidate's own money that he may spend on his own—but not anyone else's—candidacy...
...the government ought to have no role in choosing itself...
Vol. 5 • January 2000 • No. 19
