LETTERS: GLAD CAMPAIGN REFORM DEFEATED

To the editor:

I have seen remarks by uninformed or vested-interest persons in past editions of the newspaper critical of the Republicans for defeating campaign financing legislation proposed by McCain-Feingold and Shays-Meehan.

Thank God they did defeat them. All the bills did was protect incumbents and deny our freedom to know how our legislators wheel and deal in Washington.

If these bills had passed, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare could not have prepared a 24-page scorecard letting us know how all senators and representatives of the 105th Congress voted on vital information pertaining to Social Security and Medicare. Furthermore, several other organizations could not have prepared guides covering the votes of the 105th Congress on vital matters of interest to me.

Also, other groups of less interest to me could not have prepared and mailed voting records on matters of interest to them and their followers.

All that is needed is the enforcement of present laws on soft and hard money. If this had been done, we would not have seen the Clinton-Gore team auctioning off the White House to the highest bidders nor their selling out our country to foreign interests through Chinagate.

Probably the biggest improvement on money going into politics would be instant reporting of all donations made for any elections.

All proposals so far have been unconstitutional and would have denied a very basic freedom: the right to speak, write and know. Praise the Lord the GOP had the political guts to kill these bills.

WILL E. WADE

Jackson