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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 2004)
Oregon Daily Emerald Wednesday, Octoboer 20, 2004 NEWS STAFF (541)346-5511 JEN SUD1CK EDITOR IN CHIEF STEVEN R. NEUMAN MANAGING EDITOR JARED PABEN AYISILA YA11YA NEWS EDITORS PARKER HOWELL SENIOR NEWS REPORTER MORIAH BALINCIT MEGHANN ClINIFF KARA HANSEN ANTHONY LUCERO CANELA WOOD NEWS REPORTERS CLAYTON JONES SPORTS EDITOR ION ROETMAN SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER STEPHEN MILLER BRIAN SMmi SPORTS REPORTERS RYAN NYBURG PULSE EDITOR NATASHA CHILINCER1AN . ENiOR PULSE REPORTER DAI IVI FISCHER AMY LICHTY RYAN MURPHY ULSE REPORTERS DAVID JACERNAUTH EDITORIAL EDITOR ILNNIFER MCBRIDE AILEE SLATER CHUCK SLOTHOWER IRAVIS W1LLSE COLUMNISTS ASHLEY GRIFFIN SUPPLEMENT FREELANCE EDITOR ■ LABE BRADLEY NEWS FREELANCE EDITOR/ •" CTOR OF RECRUITMENT MNIELLE HICKEY PHOTO EDITOR IAUREN WIMER .NIOR PHOTOGRAPHER TIM BOBOSKY PHOTOGRAPHER NICOLE BARKER OT TIME PHOTOGRAPHER ERIK BISHOFF PART TIME PHOTOGRAPHER BRET FURTWANCLER GRAPHICS EDITOR KIRA PARK DESIGN EDITOR ELLIOTT ASBURY CHARLIE CALDWELL DUSTIN REESE DESIGNERS SHADRA BEESLEY JEANNIE EVERS COPY CHIEFS KIMBERLY BLACKFIELD PAULTHOMPSON SPORTS COPY EDITORS AMANDA EVRARD AMBER LINDROS NEWS COPY EDITORS LINDSAY BURT PULSE COPY EDITOR ADRIENNE NELSON ONLINE EDITOR SLADE LEESON WEBMASTER BUSINESS (541)346-5511 IUDY RIEDL GENERAL MANAGER KATHY CARBONE BUSINESS MANAGER REBECCA CRTTCHEIT RECEPTIONIST NATHAN FOSTER AIBING GUO ANDREW LEAHY IOHN LONG MALLORY MAHONEY HOLLY MISTELL DISTRIBUTION ADVERTISING (541)346-3712 MELISSA GUST ADVERTISING DIRECTOR TYLER MACK SALES MANAGER ALEX AMES MATT BETZ HERON CAUSCH-DOLEN MEGAN HAMLIN ELISA JESSOP MAEGAN KASER-LEE MIA LEIDEIMEYER EMILY PHILBIN SHANNON ROGERS SALES REPRESENTATIVES KELLEE KAUFTHEIL AD ASSISTANT CLASSIFIED (541) 346-4343 TR1NA SHANAMAN CLASSIFIED MANAGER KATY GAGNON SABRINA GOWETTE LESUE STRAIGHT KERI SPANGLER KATIE STRINGER CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING ASSOCIATES PRODUCTION (541)3464381 MICHELE ROSS PRODUCTION MANAGER TARA SLOAN PRODUCTION COORDINATOR IEN CRAM LET KRISTEN DICHARRY CAMERON CAUT ANDY HOLLAND DESIGNERS The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub lished daily Monday through Fri day during the school year by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co. Inc., at the University of Ore gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald operates independently of the University with offices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial Union The Emerald is private property Unlawful removal or use of papers is prosecutable by law. FORTIVANGUR Bret Furtwangler | Grraphic designer ■ In my opinion The ABCs of underhanded 521s You don’t know who I am. You’ve never heard of me before. You don’t know what my agenda is. Do you trust me? Don’t. Oregon’s position as a presidential swing state has left the public deluged with political commercials, not all of them produced by candidates. Establish ments such as MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Tbuth wield multi-mil lion-dollar bludgeons in the war for the hearts and minds of voters. Nicknamed “527s” after an Internal Revenue Service provision granting tax exempt status to political organizations, these groups have legally existed since 1974. If you haven’t heard of them be fore this year, it’s because they’ve never exerted such enormous influence before. Thus far, 527s have used $200 million on the presidential campaign — outspend ing both Kerry and Bush themselves. The sudden budgetary boost to 527s is entirely the fault of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. More popularly known as McCain-Feingold, this act at tempted to reform campaign-finance laws. It included restrictions on mone tary contributions and forced candidates to post pictures of themselves in their ads, making them publicly accountable for any misstatements. 527s don’t face similar guidelines. Groups qualify for unlimited donations as long as they don’t endorse a candi date. The only way Congress could have invited more virulent mudslinging was to moon Rupert Murdoch. The rules that do restrain 527s are eas ily sidestepped, as demonstrated by the runaround many 527s have orchestrat ed against disclosure laws. The IRS re cently forced reluctant political organiza tions to publish the names of major contributors in accordance with federal law, but months of playing hide-and-go seek continue to go unpunished. Not re vealing campaign contributors can result in taxes on the accounts not revealed, but not the revocation of full tax-exempt status. Some 527s are willing to pay a price in order to keep their connections JENNIFER MCBRIDE QUASHING DISSENT secret from voters and lawmakers. There is no reason taxpayers should implicitly subsidize corporations who gamble with political groups but refuse to take re sponsibility for their statements. In addition, 527s are legally required to operate separately from political can didates and parties, Only the naive could truly believe there is no coordination be tween campaigns and 527s when they share staff or legal advisors. The most notable infraction is Benjamin L. Gins berg, who was a top lawyer in the Bush Cheney campaign until he resigned after his connections to the anti-Kerry Swift Boat group were revealed. Republicans are not the only ones with unclean hands: Zack Exley left his post as Special Projects Director of MoveOn.org to join the Kerry campaign, causing Republicans to cry foul. These examples are hardly isolated. Most 527s seem little more than so phisticated wind-up dolls, and the hands that are guiding them are promi nent party activists or business people hiding under innocuous names. Thus, candidates circumvent the law and cor porate influence is still entrenched in the political system. No matter how transparent the ve neers, 527s allow candidates to distance themselves from unfavorable or irre sponsible groups, projecting themselves as positive and optimistic. Of course they are ... as long as they have surrogates to play dirty for them. Whether these advertisements’ allega tions are fact or fiction is open to debate, but one thing is clear: No matter how neutral the title of "America Coming To gether" sounds, anything coming from politicians or their cronies must not be treated with blind faith. Unfortunately, many people are doing just that. The Federal Election Commission has tried to close some loopholes by limiting individual contributions to 527s for the next election cycle, but for the most part the commission has been unwilling or unable to intervene, despite requests from both sides of the aisle. Some argue that part of freedom of speech is freedom to spend, but there is no intrinsic right to tax-exempt status. By revoking the 527 from 527s that vio late the letter or the spirit of federal law, the government will encourage respon sible campaigning. Unfortunately, it appears unlikely that the flow of illegal soft-money con tributions can be stopped without to talitarian measures. As long as there is law, there are loopholes. The alterna tive to current programs is to strength en regulation and achieve what we can or abandon limits altogether. The easiest and simplest way to re dress the problem may start with us. When faced with a decision so im mensely important, we can’t afford to let partisan passions override skepticism. You can start the scrutiny by knowing a little about who's preaching to you. Opensecrets.org, run by the Center for Responsive Politics, offer summations of ads run by 527s, as well as budgetary es timates and lists of major contributors. Factcheck.org is another excellent re source. Run by the University of Penn sylvania, it assesses the accuracy of po litical commercials' claims. In the spirit of full disclosure, my name is Jennifer McBride and I’m a stu dent at the University’s journalism school. I have no familial or business connections with anyone in state, local or national politics, but I am a registered Democrat (albeit a reluctant one). My only agenda is to convince you to ask if I have an agenda. The question is, can you believe me when I say that? iennifermcbride@ daily emerald, com ■ Editorial Bush, Kerry both fizzle without planet plans Neither presidential candidate has made environmental policy a cornerstone of his campaign. But relative to other politicians in Washington, Kerry has a good record on the environment. The League of Conservation Voters gave him over a 90 percent score dur ing 2001 and 2002 for environmental votes. In 2003 he received a score of 53 percent, but that was due to his frequent absence from key environmental votes, which the League, quiet rightly, counts as a negative. But when he has shown up to vote, he has been firmly on the side of enforcement. The Bush doctrine, on the other hand, has been to let polluting industries police them selves while the U.S. government is busy policing the world. Bush has ignored scien tific advice, appointed industry-friendly reg ulators to key environmental positions, sent up a long list of anti-environmental judicial nominees for Senate review and allowed corporate polluters to write the nation’s en ergy policy. If the environment is an important issue, Kerry is the clear choice for president. But it is not quite that simple. When we speak of the environment, we are really speaking of two separate, but related, issues: environ mental health and environmental sustain ability. Neither candidate will admit that if we re ally wish to turn back the damage we are currently inflicting on the earth, then the lifestyle that the majority of Americans en joy — in fact demand — will need to be vastly altered. Solar power and recycling alone won’t do the trick. We need to con sume differently. And Americans are not go ing to give up their freedom to shop without a fight. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were our best hope to convince Americans to make lifestyle changes. If the government had con nected patriotism with driving less, buying more fuel-efficient cars, conserving electrici ty, generating less waste, etc., Americans would have listened. But Bush squandered the opportunity, asking us to shop more, not less, in order to jump-start the economy. Would such an action have staved off fu ture environmental Armageddon? Probably not. But most of us still recycle our papers and cans, hoping to slow down the destruc tion of the earth long enough for a techno logical miracle to come along and save us from ourselves. We are now the idealists, with a quasi-religious faith in the Human Progress. Kerry is about as good as we are going to get. But for those who take an “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we'll die” attitude about the environment, Bush is your man. And as hard as it is to say, you just might be the most practical among us. In the Oct. 11 article “Student Senate violates state law,” the Emerald erro neously reported that ASUO Account ing Coordinator Jennifer Creighton Neiwert presided over the Oct. 6 Senate meeting. Creighton-Neiwert at tended the meeting to oversee the elec tion process. The Senate president presided over the meeting. The Emer ald regrets the error.
