Chris Adams

The New York Times has a darkly-comical story about campaign finance reform. It turns out that many of the people who voted for McCain-Feingold didn't read the bill first!

The new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Representative Robert T. Matsui of California, who voted for McCain-Feingold, says he has been surprised by its fine print. "I didn't realize what all was in it," Mr. Matsui said.

This is rather disgusting when you think about all of the effort made pretending that this mess is even constitutional and the worst part is that this probably won't swing a single re-election campaign.

The worst part is that this whole mess is completely unnecessary. The only thing needed is a mandatory Open Secrets-style reporting system which would allow politicians to accept donations from anyone they choose (to avoid violating the First ammendment) as long as they're comfortable with everyone knowing who's bankrolling their campaign. We've already seen this at work in the copyright wars where a simple listing like "Fritz Hollings (D-SC, 2002 entertainment industry total $320,617)" makes the motivation behind a bill quite clear.