Elections - Campaign-Finance Reform - Democracy - McCain-Feingold - Politics - New York Times: "American democracy has always been haunted by the specter of concentrated wealth. How can the principle of one man, one vote be honored when the accumulation of dollars translates so readily into the accumulation of political influence? If all citizens enjoy the equal right to participate in politics with their wallets, is it possible to hold a fair election? In today's proudly money-mad, winner-take-all economy, these questions are as urgent as ever.

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Certainly, the end of McCain-Feingold would have consequences. The ban on soft money addressed a serious political problem about wealth and political access: more than half of the $500 million in soft money raised in 2000 came from only 800 donors, each contributing a minimum of $120,000. Fully 435 of them were corporations or unions, and the rest were among the wealthiest 1 percent of individual citizens. Under McCain-Feingold, the influence of those donors has been reduced. Despite the rise of so-called 527 organizations to exploit loopholes in the law, the ban on corporate soft-money contributions to political parties has had some success. Candidates are relieved that they do not have to help solicit corporate soft money, as they did during the fund-raising scandals of the go-go '90s, and corporations are relieved at not being shaken down to contribute to both parties to hedge their bets. More important, banning soft money has forced the parties and candidates to learn to raise money from individuals who are not among the superrich, and the Internet has allowed them to do so in cost-effective ways. In the first half of 2007, Barack Obama received contributions from more than 250,000 individuals while raising millions over the Internet.

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The most significant result of a decision to strike down virtually all campaign-finance regulations would be to dash reformers' hopes for more comprehensive reform -- hope, that is, for the sort of policies that proponents of equal access in politics believe would actually work. In Belgium, for example, parties receive 85 percent of their revenue from the government, and spending is strictly restricted during the three months before an election. Such an approach, however, would be hard to reconcile with Americans' dislike of subsidizing politicians -- or with our First Amendment tradition, whether interpreted by the Warren Court or the Roberts Court.

The larger question, of course, is whether it's useful for the country to have yet another polarized debate about whether giving money is free speech. The truth is that few people are absolutists on the question. No less an egalitarian than the political theorist Michael Walzer, who supports a "radical ban on private fund-raising," has suggested that candidates should at least be allowed to hold bake sales. And free-speech conservatives, who care more about liberty than equality in the political process, haven't yet questioned the ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates, which dates back to the Progressive era. Since 1976, the Supreme Court has tried to finesse this debate. It has insisted that Congress can regulate contributions to candidates more extensively than expenditures by candidates, because contributions are more likely to lead to quid pro quo corruption and are less central to free expression. But now the court seems on the verge of throwing out this nuanced position and announcing that because money is almost always speech, it can almost never be regulated. That's a plausible vision of the First Amendment, but whether it will produce a political system that inspires confidence among the American people remains to be seen. "

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