So, now that the election's been over all of 9 days, the RNC has decided it's okay to drop the charade that they give a crap about John McCain:
they've filed two suits claiming that McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional. The actual suits are in PDFs at that link for folks with legal knowhow, but for those of us who don't:
WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee (RNC) today announced it will file lawsuits in the District of Columbia and Louisiana challenging, respectively, the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's ban on national parties raising and spending non-federal dollars, and the constitutionality of political party coordinated expenditure limits. The RNC does so to defend its interests as a national party committee with varied interests, including both state and federal elections, as well as redistricting and grassroots lobbying. RNC Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan released the following statement today concerning the lawsuits.
"The campaign finance restrictions the RNC today challenged infringe on the First Amendment's core: political speech and association," Duncan said. "The RNC must have the ability to support state candidates, coordinate expenditures with our candidates, and truly engage in political activity on a national level.The RNC has operated under and complied with these provisions of the law since their enactment, and as applied it is unconstitutional."
Ambinder has a summary/analysis here as well.
Basically: "It's
hard to campaign without soft money. Let's go suing!"
So, too soon? Too transparent? Too obviously a sign that the party needs some damn reorganization if they can't compete without gobs of money obtained in a shady manner?
Or... is it about damn time someone went after these restrictions on political free speech?
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Only if you believe that money is speech.
Also, are you referring to the provisions that prevent outside entities from running ads within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election? I'm having difficulty finding the provisions which you suggest would prevent candidates from running certain types of ads.
Anyway, I think McCain-Feingold is a direct result of the dirty tricks Bush pulled to rip the nomination from McCain in 2000.
A) Your knowledge of infringements on free speech seem to have large gaps.
and
No it doesn't. It prohibits unions and corporations from doing so but not candidates. Neither unions nor corporations have 1st Amendment rights.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Actually, I think corporations and unions both have limited first amendment rights, but I may be (and probably am) wrong.