The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act: A Critical Essay

On March, 27, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA)." The BCRA contains a number of important changes to federal campaign finance law. While many in the United States support this law, others object to some of its provisions. This essay will critically examine the BCRA to assess how, and to what degree, its provisions protect and promote the public interest.

The BCRA took some seven years to become law (Mann, 2003). It was developed by members of both the Democratic and Republican political parties in order to help prevent the improper use of money in electoral campaigns. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill was proposed by Representatives Shays and Meehan; in the Senate, it was proposed by Senators McCain and Feingold (Gross, 2002). According to Thomas E. Mann (2003), passing the BCRA was a major legislative accomplishment that only occurred because members of the two major political parties agreed in principal to reform campaign finance law in the interest of serving the public.

Specifically, the BCRA's key provisions are:

A ban on national party committees and federal candidates and officeholders from raising or spending nonfederal fundsknown as "soft money;"

Limit and require disclosure of electioneering communications or so-called "issue ads;"

An increase on certain contribution limits and indexing those contributions to inflation;

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that the political system will be democratized. Individuals can now contribute as much as $2,000 to a single political candidate, giving individual contributors a somewhat larger voice in shaping their candidate's positions (This campaign reform�, 2002). Not everyone agrees that the BCRA truly serves the public interest. A number of its opponents believe that it represents an attack on protected First Amendment speech and the right of political association. They argue that the restrictions of the new law unconstitutionally limit the rights of people and groups to participate in federal elections. The BCRA is also seen as limiting the ability of national, state, and local parties to work cooperatively to promote candidates and issues (Mann, 2003). A number of groups, including the Republican National Committee, the California Democratic Party, the National Rifle Association, the AFL-CIO, and the American Civil Liberties Union went to court to challenge the BCRA as soon as it was signed by President Bush (Mann, 2003). All of these complaints were consolidated into a single case, McConnell v. FEC, which a trial court began hearing in December 2002. However, though this court held that the law was constitutional, they did n

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