Sunday, March 27, 2005

Lying Lobbyists' Legislation

If you’re reading this post, I need not explain the McCain-Feingold inspired court ruling that potentially threatens its very existence. No, criticism of that atrocious Act is ubiquitous…at least in the blogosphere. However, there seems to be more to the story. Front Page Mag posted an article that exposed the genesis of the MF. In it, there’s a link to aWSJ Opinion Journal piece that tells all:
If a political gaffe consists of inadvertently revealing the truth, then Sean Treglia, a former program officer for the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, has just ripped the curtain off of the "good government" groups that foisted the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill on the country in 2002. The bill's restrictions on political speech have the potential for great mischief; just last month a member of the Federal Election Commission warned they could limit the activities of bloggers and other Internet commentators.


Apparently, Teglia fabricated a “grass roots” campaign to limit the political (monetary) speech of conservatives. There was no public support for this bill, so Pew made one up…out of whole cloth.
But the results were spectacular. Not only did the effort succeed in bulldozing Congress and President Bush, but it might have played a role in persuading the Supreme Court, which had previously ruled against broad restrictions on political speech, to declare McCain-Feingold constitutional in 2003 on a 5-4 vote. "You will see that almost half the footnotes relied on by the Supreme Court in upholding the law, are research funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts," Mr. Treglia boasted.


Herein lies the focus of this post. It appears that the Constitution was not faithfully executed, in the interest of serving “the will of the people”. Ironically, there was indeed no popular demand for reform, as most saw it as a free speech violation. This bit of information elucidates the deleterious effects of democracy. When reelection by majority vote is how one maintains a job, such foolishness as this ought not to be surprising.

The original intent of the Founders was to elect the House of Reps by popular vote, which in turn, would elect Senators (from its midst) to represent the sovereign states. The Congress would then appoint a President. In this scenario, the cries of the mob would have less volume, but the voice of the Constitution could more clearly be heard. The imperfection of the Constitution not withstanding, its proper interpretation seeks to preserve the rights and liberties of all, without respect to social status. Our elected officials would do well to familiarize themselves with the document that they have sworn to honor.