From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > In the US, liberals are quite excited by the prospect that the > McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill has passed the House of > Representatives in the shape of the Shays-Meehan bill and is quite likely to > be re-endorsed by the Senate and then (despite his obvious wishes) signed by > Dubya. One of the key parts is the banning of "soft money" by corporations & > the rich to the national political-party organizations. My question: doesn't > this simply shift power to the state level, to the state party > organizations? > Jim Devine >
State and local level, yes. Soft money contributions to the RNC and DNC will be illegal, but contributions of up to $10,000 per individual will be permitted to the state and local branches. Tim Russert said today on Meet the Press that the $10,000 limit applies only to each county; Florida, by virtue of its 67 counties, would allow a total of $670,000 by one donor. Couple this marginal restriction on soft money with the boosted cap on individual contributions (from $1,000 to $2,000, and now indexed to inflation) and a good argument could be made that this bill does more harm than good. Jeff
