09/21/06 Lileks Wrong About Reform Law

In his Sept. 14 column, James Lileks repeated the false claim that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold law, "forbade interest groups from running broadcast ads that attack a candidate by name within 60 days of the election."

Lileks is either ignorant of what the law says, or is deliberately misleading his readers.

McCain-Feingold does not prevent anyone, or any group, from running an ad at any time. But in the last 60 days before an election, the law does require the ad's sponsors to obey longstanding campaign finance laws that candidates and all other participants in campaigns have to follow, including disclosing how much is spent on the ad and who is paying for it. Voters need that information.

Corporate donations were banned in Wisconsin in 1906 and prohibited nationally a few years later. In the 1990s wealthy special interests developed electioneering practices that let corporate cash in through a loophole in federal campaign laws, until McCain-Feingold sought to close that loophole.

Knowing that defending illicit corporate campaign contributions was a losing proposition, opponents of reform fabricated the myth that McCain-Feingold curbs freedom of speech by banning groups from running ads -- a clever deception, but a lie nonetheless.

-- Mike McCabe, executive director, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Madison