| 摘要 | The conviction that something has gone awry in our political process is again growing stronger in the United States Congress. In particular, the view that wealth has excessive influence on election results and that election campaigns are too costly seems almost a routine assumption.
These claims come on the heels of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, a restrictive law regulating the contribution and use of campaign money. That act has been greeted by constitutional authorities with comments ranging from “would seem to violate the First Amendment”1 to “flatly unconstitutional”2 and has been challenged by lawyers for the New York Times as “shot through with constitutional deficiencies.”3 Hence considerable caution would seem warranted before federal regulation of campaign financing is expanded. Nevertheless, the Congress is seriously considering even more drastic legislation.
The principal proposals now under debate are relatively old and deceptively simple. In general outline they include a substantial subsidy from public funds to be given to federal candidates to pay all or part of their campaign costs.4 This subsidy would be complemented by legal limits on (1) the amount spent by a candidate or those furthering a candidacy and (2) the size of individual financial contributions to a candidate’s campaign.
Such proposals are of critical importance. If adopted, they will alter the political process and may have results transcending the issue of campaign financing. Moreover, because they regulate campaign advocacy, they may interfere with freedom of expression.
The proposals ought, therefore, to be implemented only after a persuasive demonstration of necessity and after a weighing of all potentially undesirable effects. The position taken here is that the case for further regulation, when scrutinized, seems based on speculation rather than demonstrated fact, ignores the grave dangers to a free society such regulation threatens, and emanates in part from groups which have political interests of their own to further.
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Ralph K. Winter, Jr., is professor of law, Yale Law School, and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
John R. Bolton is a member of the Yale Law School class of 1974 and an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Notes: 1 A. Rosenthal, Federal Regulation of Campaign Finance: Some Constitutional Questions (Princeton, N. J.: Citizens’ Research Foundation (ed.), 1972}, p. 63. 2 Statement of Alexander Bickel, ibid., p. 66. 3 Brief for New York Times as amicus curiae, p. 16, American Civil Liberties Union v. Jennings, Civil No. 1967-72 (D.D.C., 1972). 4 See, for example, 5. 1103, 93d Congress, 1st session (1973}; hereinafter referred to as the Hart bill, after its author, Senator Hart. |
