KINDER'S COMMENTARY: LIDS ON CAMPAIGN DONATIONS AMOUNT TO LIMITS ON FREE SPEECH

You have the right as an American, guaranteed in the First Amendment, to the free exercise of your religion. But suppose your friends in government were to come along and say, "You may donate no more than $1,000 per year to your church and its related activities, under penalty of law." In this example, has government gutted your right to religion? Of course it has.

Or take another example: the right to travel. As an American, this right to go where you want when you want to go there is one of the precious rights distinguishing us from a dictatorship. But suppose government comes along and says, "You may spend a maximum of $1,000 per year on travel, under penalty of law." Has government, under such a regime, gutted your right to travel? Of course it has.

The above examples make clear that government restrictions on expenditures in the exercise of cherished freedoms effectively render those freedoms meaningless. A governmental limit on the amount you can donate to your church? Of course such a limit would make the right meaningless. A governmental limit on the amount an American can spend on travel each year? We would never stand for it. Yet for a generation we have tolerated restrictions on donations to political campaigns. In the judgment of many of us, these campaign donation limits are unconstitutional infringements on the free speech that is the currency of our political campaigns.

Please understand that anyone trying to sell you on the need for something they call "campaign finance reform" is attempting to restrict your rights, and those of all Americans, to express free speech in political campaigns. This is so because the expenditure of money to communicate ideas in a political campaign is protected speech. "Campaign finance reform" usually flies under the banner of liberal newspapers claiming they want "clean government." What they really want is for other, competing speech to be outlawed so that their unrestricted speech will have less competititon. Ask yourself: How would these same journalists respond if told you favored a limit on how much they could spend writing editorials, or publishing news in their news columns?

Five years ago this spring, the Missouri General Assembly passed a law imposing drastic limits on donations to political campaigns. This writer and others voted against the bill, arguing that it was unconstitutional. To date, every facet of that bill that has been challenged in court has been struck down as unconstitutional by a series of federal judges.

The latest Missouri case challenging the limits is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers have briefed the issues, and oral arguments will be heard later this year in the most important case on this subject since Buckley v. Valeo in 1976. That is the case that left in place the current practice of unrestricted spending by millionaires of their own money -- as, ironically, protected speech -- coupled with $1,000 donation limits for the rest of us. That limit, set back in 1974, now amounts to about $330 in inflation-adjusted dollars.

The answer to money in politics is to require full disclosure of donations and to let the people decide. We have the technology to enable virtually overnight disclosure of political donations on the Internet. Our state and federal laws should reflect this reality and require this disclosure on a 48-hour, if not a 24-hour, basis after receipt. With strict adherence to such disclosure, candidates should be able to accept unlimited donations from their fellow citizens, to publish the facts and to let the people decide.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.