Oregon Daily Emerald
Wednesday, Octoboer 20, 2004
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■ LABE BRADLEY
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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.