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Confusion Reigns By Ramesh Ponnuru |
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Whether they're right depends on how one reads the latest version of the Shays-Meehan bill, the version introduced Tuesday night. The bill bans soft money-the less-regulated contributions that fund party building, get-out-the-vote efforts, etc.-after this November's election. If they have soft money left over after the election, the parties can use it to pay off debts. Under a plain reading of the relevant provision, a party could therefore take out a loan for hard money-the highly regulated money given to individual candidates-now and then pay it off, after the election, with soft money. That helps the Democrats because they have less hard money and more soft money than the Republicans. Congressman Chris Shays's office says that current law forbids this kind of swap, and his bill leaves that aspect of the law untouched. Opponents of Shays-Meehan deny this. In other sections of the bill, Shays-Meehan specifically refers to previous law to make clear it is not being superseded. This section of the bill contains no such reference. Therefore, they argue, a court would-or, at least, reasonably could-conclude that lawmakers left out the reference because they did intend to overturn the previous law. Shays's "Dear Colleague" letter does nothing to refute this point. Democrats who vote for this bill will surely be hoping that the DeLay interpretation is correct. Whoever's right about this disputed provision, what is quite clear is that nobody is sure what is in the law the House is voting on tonight. |
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as
a last-minute change been sneaked into the campaign-finance bill
to help Democrats? That's what a lot of Republicans are charging
on the floor of the House today.
