Campaign Finance Reform, Civil Rights & Whistleblower Protection

By Eric Margulies and Lyle Hickman, VoterWatch Staff

Today’s Transparency Recap opens with a truly unique issue: campaign finance reform. It’s interesting to note that no matter how divided the parties find themselves, campaign finance reform is the one issue that has the potential to bridge common disparities.

Recently, there was an attempt to strike down two FEC regulations that restrict the use of soft money in federal campaigns. The challenge, brought by the PAC EMILY’s List (Early Money is Like Yeast, a PAC geared towards the advancement of women in Government), contended that the FEC regulations restricting soft money were unconstitutional and violated the First Amendment by restricting their right to speech.

The restrictions were put in place in late 2004 after the large influence that money from “527s” held in the results of the election. One of the most egregious violations in the 2004 came from America Coming Together (ACT), which spent millions of dollars—98% of it soft money—in battleground states trying to sway voters.

ACT took advantage of vague wording in an FEC regulation. The challenge was rejected by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly who said, “The Supreme Court’s finding in McConnell (FEC V. McConnell) is dispositive of EMILY’s List’s vagueness claims as to the words ‘support’ and ‘oppose,’ and its analysis is similarly fatal to EMILY’s List’s claim as to the term ‘indicate.” Democracy 21’s blog had this to say on the issue:

“The court also found the solicitation regulation “serves to prevent the circumvention of [federal] contribution limits by specifying when funds received by political committees in response to solicitations will be treated as contributions under FECA [Federal Election Campaign Act].”

Further, while FECA imposed limits on political committees’ abilities to make contributions to federal candidates . . . those limits would be of little value if political committees were allowed - as ACT did - to circumvent them simply by characterizing their activities or disbursements as non-federal or not attributable to clearly identified candidates.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly held that the allocation regulation did not limit the speech that a committee could engage in. The court said, “While the allocation regulations at issue in this case may affect the manner in which EMILY’s List must fund the speech in which it chooses to engage, they do not in any way limit the political speech that EMILY’s List may undertake.”

Another lawsuit was filed a few weeks ago by The Real Truth About Obama, INC., which will challenge the very rulings that Judge Kollar-Kotelly upheld. It seems this issue will continue to be contentiously challenged. Regardless of who started the battle, both sides are waging war.

A safety net of legislation is passed for the vocal workers who report their employers, as we move on to the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) blog piece titled “Wait! Still More Work to do to Protect Whistleblowers.”

According to POGO blog, “On Thursday, August 14, President Bush signed the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act. The law provides whistleblower protection for the estimated 20 million workers for companies that make, distribute or sell the 15,000 consumer products under the Commission’s jurisdiction.”

POGO blog commends the President for signing this bill into law, but “calls on lawmakers to provide the same protection to federal employees who are crucial to protecting the public health and safety.” The federal employees are the ones with the most insight and inside information concerning Congress and government transparency.

“The conference committee has been deadlocked for weeks,” POGO blog writes, “working to resolve critical remaining issues which POGO believes will determine whether Congress is serious about results or simply making a gesture towards good governance and transparency.”

The topic of protection rights brings us to American Constitution Society’s (ACS) blog “Calif. High Court Says Anti-Discrimination Act Trumps First Amendment Rights,” where freedom of speech and religious beliefs conflict with law. Guadalupe T. Benitez, a lesbian seeking artificial insemination, was denied on the basis of the acting physicians religious beliefs. According to ACS blog:

Guadalupe T. Benitez then sued the hospital, arguing that her rights under the state’s civil rights law were violated. California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act states that “All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, an no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, or medical condition are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.”

Amended in 2005, California’s lawmakers added a sexual orientation clause. The ACS blog quotes the California Supreme Court’s conclusion on the Civil Rights Act:

“...valid and neutral law...that applies to all people, regardless of their religious beliefs..."it requires business establishments to provide ‘full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services’ to all persons notwithstanding their sexual orientation. Accordingly, the First Amendment’s right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt defendant physicians here from conforming their conduct to the Act’s antidiscrimination requirements even if compliance poses an incidental conflict with defendants’ religious beliefs.

In other news, Ellen Miller at the Sunlight Foundation blog is reporting on the war on earmarks being waged by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). Dubbed the “earmark sheriff” Coburn, the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Government Relations in the last Congress sent out numerous letters to various federal agencies requesting information on earmark management.

Last week Coburn’s office received the reports and apparently his staff was not impressed. It is clear that the bureaucracies were not enthusiastic to cooperate with Coburn since they had to designate their own personnel and spend part of their own budgets to liaise. Miller had insightful commentary on the Sunlight Foundation Blog: “Undoubtedly more pertinent, however, is that the agencies apparently pulled punches out of a reticence to offend any single member of Congress.”

“Agency heads are often reluctant to criticize the hand that feeds them,” Coburn’s press secretary is quoted as saying. “We weren’t pleased with the level of openness.”

by billy

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