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--> --> Campaign finance reform needs new battlefield By Jan Waitt "Hats off" to Senator John McCain for "fighting the good fight" and passing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation in the U.S. Senate. Oregon's Senator Ron Wyden aided in the effort. Campaign finance reform is vital for our democracy. The catch is that the campaign finance reform fight needs to move to a new battlefield. The McCain-Feingold Bill bans soft money and regulates issue ads. lssue ads are political ads that masquerade as discussion of issues and are designed to avoid regulation and disclosure. Soft money is unrestricted contributions to political parties. The growth in soft money fundraising and issue ads results from political operatives trying to get around the so-called "hard money" contribution limits set in the post-Watergate era. The McCain-Feingold fight is an important victory, but it does not fundamentally shift political fundraising in our county. Only with a fundamental change, a new battlefield, will the democratic potential of campaign finance reform be fully realized. Last November, Oregon played an important role in moving the campaign finance reform debate to that new battlefield. Ballot Measure 6 called for a radically different reform alternative at the statewide level. Unfortunately, the basic message of Measure 6, that elections should be owned by voters and not campaign contributors, was not heard during last fall's cluttered election. More conversations are needed so that additional voters hear about clean money publicly funded elections and how they will improve democracy. Like Women's Suffrage, publicly funded elections is a good idea that may take time to gain widespread public support. The workability of this reform strategy was demonstrated during the 2000 elections in Maine and Arizona that operated under clean money systems. Voter choice was greatly enhanced by dramatic increases in the number of contested primaries and more candidates involved in competitive general elections. lmproving democracy by providing limited public funding on a voluntary basis to those candidates that meet strict qualifying requirements has been proven. The reform successes demonstrated in Maine and Arizona show that fighting for voter owned clean money elections is the best battlefield for comprehensive campaign finance reform. Does this mean that contribution limits aren't worthwhile? No, and it may well be time for Oregon to leave the small group of six states that have no limits at all on the size of contributions to candidates from any category of donor. Oregonians passed contribution limits in 1994. These limits were only in effect for the 1996 elections, however, because the Oregon Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional. Any new contribution limits proposal must amend the state constitution. The 1996 elections did involve much less money in politics and this is an important goal of campaign finance reform. However, the contribution limit approach did not increase the number of contested primaries or the competitiveness of elections. In 1996, a side effect of contribution limits was record amounts of money spent on independent expenditures, and issue ads made an appearance in Oregon politics. This means that voters were not hearing directly from candidates and this kind of spending is more difficult to monitor and regulate. These drawbacks to the contribution limit approach at the federal level led to the soft money and issue ad regulatory steps contained in the McCain-Feingold bill. If an Oregon contribution limit proposal is adopted it must be accompanied by the follow-up regulatory steps contained in McCain-Feingold. Contribution limits alone, however, are not enough. They could be worth the fight. But ultimately democracy will be best served by moving to the battlefield for public funding campaign finance reform that provides for voter owned elections. Jan Waitt is a member, of the American Association of University Women of Ashland. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing