CAMPAIGN "REFORM" GAGS
THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT

[T]he Shays-Meehan "reform"... is the latest effort by the government class to limit the rights of Americans to petition the government. ...

Shays-Meehan (like McCain-Feingold in the Senate) is built around the conceit that Congress can purge money from politics without limiting the First Amendment right to political speech. ...

The reformers want Americans to participate in politics except during elections.

Editorial, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 5, 1998

The House of Representatives took a dangerous step when it recently passed the Shays-Meehan "campaign reform" bill. The bill, which is similar to the McCain-Feingold bill in the Senate, is a brazen attack on your First Amendment rights to speak freely about political candidates and issues and to petition the government through citizen groups like the NRLC.

This campaign to impose free speech-gagging "reform" on this country is, in part, driven by the frustration of the "government class," self-appointed political "speech nannies," and the " institutional media" over their failure to control independent citizen groups (like NRLC) and alternate channels of communication. If we weren't successful, the "government class" and the "speech nannies" wouldn't be quite so determined to shut us down. If we didn't provide effective and competing channels for the communication of political ideas, voting records, etc., the " institutional media" wouldn't be quite so eager to curtail our First Amendment rights while they vigorously protect theirs.

Another reason for the phony fervor "to do something about political campaigns" is, of course, that the "reform" hullabaloo is a wonderful diversion of public attention from credible charges that the White House and the Democratic National Committee engaged in massive violation of laws governing campaign finances. (Therefore, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Bill Clinton, the Democratic leadership in Congress, and most but not all Democrats in Congress are for "reform." Why there were enough foolish Republicans in the House to join them is another question.)

ABSURD PROPOSITIONS

The proponents of the "reform" scam want you to swallow a few absurd propositions that are inherent in their position.

You are asked to accept the notion that the First Amendment allows the regulation, restriction, and outright prohibition of political speech while other speech and expression, e.g., in the form of pornographic magazines, enjoy full protection under the amendment. Our Founding Fathers would be utterly astonished by this perversion of the meaning of the First Amendment. To participate freely in the political process and in election campaigns, to influence public opinion, to lobby for public policies all these activities are at the core of the free-speech rights of the First Amendment. After all, this is the United States of America and not the former Soviet Union. This is the Land of the Free and not the Gulag of Speech Commissars.

(In a touch of political honesty, Democratic House Minority Leader and presidential candidate Dick Gephardt did admit to Time magazine [Feb. 3, 1997] that his ideas about "healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy" were at odds with the First Amendment. When Republicans took him by his word and offered a " reform" bill to amend the constitution to suit his ideas for a vote, Mr. Gephardt voted "present," while 29 other congressmen actually voted "yea.")

You are also asked to swallow the notion that rather than enforce existing law it is the "reform" way to come up with new untested law. Somehow those accused of habitually breaking and disregarding the old law will miraculously show unaccustomed respect for the new law. Of course, this goes hand in hand with the strategy to stymie investigation and adjudication of alleged violations of existing campaign laws long enough until all the huffing and puffing about "reform" exhausts the public will to have the culprits punished.

Finally, you are asked to subject yourself to the tyrannical notion that you, an honest and law-abiding citizen, should accept a radical curtailment of your First Amendment rights supposedly for the sake of reigning in some law-flouting scoundrels. While this is infuriatingly offensive to you and me, it makes perfect sense to the scoundrels. Clearly, we are at a point now where the campaign "reform" enterprise shows all the signs of being wicked, absurd, and even foolish. That, however, doesn't deter some very cynical people from trying to use it to gain power. It doesn't concern them one bit that you might lose your First Amendment rights in the process. On the contrary, gagging pro-lifers is one of the goals.

"REFORM" IS A
DEADLY THREAT
Surely, you say, this is all unconstitutional; the Supreme Court would strike it down. Yes and maybe. Pro-lifers know all too well that you can't always rely on the Supreme Court to do what is right under the Constitution. In the editorial quoted at the top of this page, the Wall Street Journal notes that "Once reform has passed Congress, they can then unleash their media mouthpieces on those Justices known to be susceptible to elite press opinion (Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Sandra Day O 'Connor). It's worked before."

At a minimum, a protracted legal battle would cost NRLC enormous financial resources and would divert our energies from our true calling. We shall defend our First Amendment rights in court if we have to, but we much rather use all of your contributions to advance the right to life. Therefore, you and I must do everything we can to avoid going to court in the first place and defeat speech-suppressing campaign "reform" in Congress.

Given the uncertainty of a Supreme Court decision and the determination of the "reformers," it is by no means certain that the pro-life movement can escape the deadly threat of campaign " reform." This malicious "reform" wouldn't simply inconvenience NRLC or only cost us more money; it would effectively kill us as a public force. There could be no more nationwide campaigns against partial-birth abortion. NRLC could no longer speak out forcefully and truthfully on issues without the heavy-handed censorship of the new election bureaucracy.

There is no time to lose. By phone, fax, e-mail, and letter tell your U.S. senator that you want him or her to vote against the McCain-Feingold bill (the Senate version of Shays-Meehan) and against cloture of Sen. Mitch McConnell's filibuster of the McCain-Feingold bill. Then thank the congressmen who voted against Shays-Meehan and, politely but firmly, take to task those who voted to abridge your First Amendment rights.