Ed Whitfield: “when I think about the Shays-Meehan bill, I think of many people who have described it in the news media as an incumbent…”

“when I think about the Shays-Meehan bill, I think of many people who have described it in the news media as an incumbent protection act. And I think that adequately describes what this bill is all about because we all know that if you are an incumbent Member of Congress, it is very easy to raise hard money through political action committees. But if you are a challenger to an incumbent, it is very difficult to raise hard money, and you get your best support from soft money through issue advocacy ads. The only thing this legislation does is it does not apply in any way to money spent by politicians for their campaigns, but does seriously restrict money spent by other groups and entities to talk about campaigns, and particularly that is true within the last 60 days of an election. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that there are two types of money. Hard money; if you expressly advocate the defeat or election of a candidate, you can only use hard money. But if you talk about issues and tell people the way a candidate votes on an issue without expressly advocating his defeat or election, you can use soft money. But Shays-Meehan says that any ad run within 60 days of an election must use hard money. And the Supreme Court and other Federal courts have consistently said that if you create obstacles to participating in the election system in the democracy that we live in, then it is unconstitutional.”