CAMPAIGN REFORM

Let's see if the current state of Missouri's tangled law on campaign finance can somehow be sorted out:

In 1994 the General Assembly, casting a nervous glance at an initiative petition drive to place a tough reform measure on the ballot, passed into law Senate Bill 650. SB 650 contained a host of measures limiting donations: $1,000 each for primary and general elections for statewide campaigns; $500 each for state senate campaigns, both primary and general; and $250 each for state representative, both primary and general. The measure also contained a ban on all fund raising by any candidates while the Legislature is in session -- the period from early January to late May.

Meanwhile, the left-wing reformers pushing the initiative petition, undeterred by the lawmakers' action, qualified their measure -- dubbed Proposition A -- for the November 1994 ballot. Where prior to 1994 Missouri had had no limits on donations whatsoever, Prop A would enact some of the nation's toughest campaign finance limitations. Donations would be limited to $300 for statewide campaigns, $200 for state senate races and $100 for state representative races. These figures are for the entire, four-year campaign cycle, both primary and general elections (two years in the case of state representative). The people passed Prop A by 73 percent margin. Thus the state had both of these measures, with their conflicting and confusing provisions, as the law.

Sufficiently confused? It gets worse.

As some lawmakers predicted, both measures became targets of lawsuits alleging that they are unconstitutional infringements on First Amendment freedoms of speech and association. After a couple of separate federal court challenges, every single provision of both reform measures that has been challenged has been struck down, either by federal district courts or by the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Specifically, the 8th Circuit ruling voided Missouri's Prop A limitations as violative of freedom of speech -- the expenditure of monies to communicate a message in an election campaign being an exercise of protected free speech.

Even this was not the end to the legal challenges. On Jan. 3, the day the Legislature convened for its 1996 session, yet another litigant group sued, targeting the ban on fund raising while the legislature is in session, which to that date no lawsuit had challenged. The federal judge who heard this challenge immediately granted a temporary restraining order against enforcement of this provision, pending a hearing to be held this week on whether to make this order permanent.

Attorney General Jay Nixon has appealed the 8th Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide later this year whether to hear it. (Don't bet on it: the nation's highest court takes only a fraction of appeals brought before it).

The temporary and thoroughly confused upshot, pending a decision on Supreme Court review, is this: For now, the slightly more generous limitations of SB 650 are in effect, and as long as the restraining order on the ban on fund raising during the session stands, that provision has no effect.

The answer to money in politics is full disclosure. Publish all the donations and let the people decide. Missouri has had a good disclosure law on the books for more than 20 years. When you venture down this tortured road of draconian limitations on donations, you get the tangled web currently ensnaring Missouri officials as well as those public-spirited citizens brave enough to aspire to join their ranks.