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OpinionApril 5, 2001

The entire premise of the current crusade to reform campaign-finance laws is flawed. The premise underlying the mania to restrict campaign fund raising and spending is that the political process is corrupt and that imperfections in existing law are the reason...

The entire premise of the current crusade to reform campaign-finance laws is flawed.

The premise underlying the mania to restrict campaign fund raising and spending is that the political process is corrupt and that imperfections in existing law are the reason.

Despite being challenged to substantiate his claims of rampant corruption, Sen. John McCain has never been able to produce any specifics.

Not every congressman is corrupt, nor is every campaign contributor. But much of the electorate is certainly willing to believe they are, especially when one with inside knowledge, such as McCain, says so.

McCain and the reformers generalize that politicians base their policy votes not on principle, but on the dictates of their major contributors. More and more empirical data are emerging to suggest that this simply isn't the case.

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By dealing in generalities, the reformers are able to capitalize on public misconceptions, such as the one that the Clinton-Gore campaign-finance scandals were caused by loopholes in the campaign-finance laws. But legal loopholes had nothing to do with those crimes. The unambiguous law is that campaign contributions from foreign nationals are illegal. Clinton and Gore knew that and deliberately violated those laws. The fact that they were never brought to justice is not because the laws were vague, but mainly because Janet Reno's Justice Department refused to enforce existing laws.

By relegating the debate to an emotional level, facts are not the only casualty. Prudence is abandoned as well. The reform movement has been overtaken by an irrational zeal and artificial urgency. Far more pressing problems are being ignored or deferred.

This emotionalism also lends itself to an unrealistic expectation that the legislative remedy will work. In fact, it will most likely generate more problems than it solves.

Based on fraudulent premises, McCain-Feingold is an old-fashioned cop-out.

~David Limbaugh is a Cape Girardeau lawyer, author and syndicated columnist.

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