Well, this caught me off-guard today:
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, have sent their colleagues a letter asking for co-sponsors of a bill that would in effect overturn the 1976 Supreme Court decision Buckley v. Valeo, which ruled that campaign spending was a protected form of free speech. It has bedeviled all subsequent attempts to limit the influence of political money.
A similar proposal received only 40 "yes" votes in the Senate six years ago and it is almost certain to fail again.
The current presidential public campaign finance system was designed to get around the Supreme Court’s decision in Buckley v. Valeo. Instead of imposing mandatory limits, the system seeks to induce candidates to accept voluntary spending caps by offering them taxpayer-funded grants if they do. This year, however, the leading candidates in both parties are planning to reject the public grants because they can raise and spend more by relying on private donations.
The Democratic front-runners all support updating the presidential public financing system to keep up with the pace of private fund-raising. But in an interview, Senator Schumer said the widespread rejection of the system this year "vindicates" the view that truly effective campaign finance restrictions will be impossible while Buckley v. Valeo stands.
For what it's worth, here's Sen. Hollings' language from 2001 for a Constitutional amendment (I don't have the Schumer/Specter draft):
SECTION 1. Congress shall have power to set reasonable limits on the amount of contributions that may be accepted by, and the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to, a candidate for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office.
SECTION 2. A State shall have power to set reasonable limits on the amount of contributions that may be accepted by, and the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to, a candidate for nomination for election to, or for election to, State or local office.
SECTION 3. Congress shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation.'.
It seems to me there are three ways campaign finance reform generally could go:
- Supplement the status quo with a system of voluntary public financing, so that many candidates can and will choose to opt out of the fundraising game.
- Amend the Constitution like this to allow for real limits on the amounts campaign can spend.
- Just give up on the notion that any set of restrictions will keep "bad money" out of the system, and instead focus on transparency and disclosure, because money (like water) always finds a crack to seep through.
For those just focused on fixing this at the Presidential level, Sen. Feingold's
Presidential Public Funding Act of 2007 remains the sane, common-sense, and therefore unlikely-to-be-passed legislative means to bring that system up to the speed and numbers of 21st Century campaigning.
edited to clarify: The Schumer/Specter proposal, like Sen. Hollings' before it, would take the form of a constitutional amendment, not an ordinary bill. Under Article V of the Constitution, you'd need two-thirds of both chambers to get this process moving.