Tuesday
Editor in chief: Jack Clifford
Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P-O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@iournalist.com
First came the battle—now comes the war
-fypAPTAIN
/SENSIBLE
Senators John McCain and Russ
Feingold have chalked up a major
victory for the cause of campaign fi
nance reform. After six years of be
ing defeated out of hand, their bill
passed the Senate and is meant to
address the issue of “soft money,”
unregulated donations that corpo
rations give to political parties
rather than candidates.
Hard money, or money given di
rectly to candidates, has been regu
lated since 1974, when in a post
Watergate drive to clean up its act,
Congress passed the Campaign Fi
nance Reform Act, limiting said do
nations to $1,000. McCain-Fein
gold would raise the limit to $3,000
and flat-out ban “soft” donations
from being used for specific candi
dates.
a
r\
jL. JA*
11 Glory Is Fleet
ing.” — Spoken to
Roman generals in
Jtriumphal parades
Obviously, this is one bill that
neither party has much love for, but
thanks to McCain, a former Viet
nam fighter pilot, and Feingold, his
Democratic opposite number,
they’ve succeeded in knocking
wave after wave of problem amend
ments out of the sky. The question
now is: Can they continue the vic
tories?
During the Senate battle, Mc
Cain, in true fighter-pilot form, shot
down a number of Republican time
bombs meant to scuttle the bill.
These included “paycheck protec
tion,” requiring labor ufiions to
seek permission from each member
before using dues for political con
tributions. I am in favor of this, as
it’s just plain wrong to force people
to contribute to a political cause or
candidate they may be in opposi
tion to as a precondition for mem
bership in a union and thus em
ployment.
However, the Republicans
weren’t being altruistic or idealistic
when they proposed the rider. It
was a calculated, cynical ploy.
They knew that if it were attached,
the Democrats would have no
choice but to vote against the whole
bill. It would be an automatic 0-6
record for John and Russ.
Instead, the Republican leader
ship crashed and burned.
Next came the “nonseverability
clause,” a bizarre piece of language
that the Repubs and the Demos
tried to insert. The clause would
have rendered the entire bill DOA
should the U.S. Supreme Court
strike down any one provision.
Usually the opposite (such that any
unconstitutional portions are sim
ply ejected from the bill) is placed
in laws as a matter of course. You
can guess why they went to the
trouble to put a “nonseverability
clause” in this law.
Nonseverability went down in
flames like so many MiGs. And Mc
Cain-Feingold passed by a comfort
able, but not too comfortable mar
gin.
Bush will sign this, or sit on it
and let it pass into law without a
signature, rather than make a
ruckus with a veto. Bush won’t risk
a veto battle with McCain right
now; he wants all attention on his
tax cut. But we’re not there yet. Mc
Cain-Feingold still faces its biggest
fight yet.
r irst and foremost is the Confer
ence Committee, which is con
vened to smooth out the differences
between House and Senate ver
sions of the bill. Expect some more
amateur theatrics here, as both De
mocrats and Republicans will like
ly try to sabotage the conference
version before it faces final votes.
Look for paycheck protection, non
severability and the other monkey
wrenches to be wielded again as big
donors, who have the ears of our
antagonists, try one last-ditch push
to make a bill nobody would will
ingly swallow.
Should McCain and Feingold be
able to win on Capitol Hill, they
still have to worry about the
Supreme Court.
Buckley v. Valleo, from 1976,
posited the ludicrous assertion that
money is speech. The case revolved
around the post-Watergate reforms,
which placed a cap on hard money,
as well as on expenditures from soft
money and personal wealth. In
Buckley, the court struck down the
spending cap, stating that “a re
striction on the amount of money a
person or group can spend on polit
ical communication during a cam
paign necessarily reduces the quan
tity of expression by restricting the
number of issues discussed, the
depth of their exploration, and the
size of the audience reached.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the
court reacts to McCain-Feingold,
should the challenge already pre
pared by a bizarre coalition of spe
cial interests, from the ACLU to the
NRA, materialize. It all depends on
the court’s interpretation of “free
speech.” Buckley allowed candi
Dixon Emerald
dates to spend from their personal
war chests. Now the debate is
whether political parties must be
allowed to buy attack ads on behalf
of candidates. In my own opinion,
as far as the court’s concerned, any
thing’s possible.
So there’s only one question I
can ask now that McCain and
Feingold have won a major battle:
However, whither the war?
Pat Payne is a columnist for the Oregon
Daily Emerald. His views do not necessari
ly represent those of the Emerald. He can
be reached at Macross_SD@hotmail.com.
Letters to the editor
The Register-Guard
should respect the union
I recently had the honor of helping
launch a local effort to recognize local peo
ple who contribute to the struggle for hu
man rights and social justice. This awards
program was announced on the 33rd an
niversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assas
sination.
The timing had special meaning for me
because I am a member of AFSCME, the
American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees. When King was
shot in Memphis, Tenn., he was there sup
porting a strike by city sanitation workers
who were members of my union. They
were striking for respect, fair treatment
and recognition of their union.
I also recently briefly canceled my sub
scription to The Register-Guard in support
of the paper’s employees. These folks are
not facing racial discrimination, but they
are struggling mightily to get their employ
er to treat them and their union with re
spect, just like those Memphis sanitation
workers were. The Register-Guard work
ers have been at it for two years now!
The Register-Guard has caused this fight
by trying to reduce wages and remove
many protections from the existing con
tract. The Register-Guard has spent tens of
thousands of dollars on a Tennessee-based
attorney to lead this fight. The Register
Guard has also broken the law several
times in carrying out this fight, according
to the National Labor Relations Board.
It’s time for The Register-Guard to truly
act like a “citizen of its community” and
reach a fair settlement with its workers. It’s
the right thing to do.
KurtWillcox
• • .Eugene •
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