What’s happening Now? 

A Snapshot of the Most Recent Attempts at Reform

In September of this year the House of Representatives passed the Shays-Meehan bill. It seeks to close the contribution "loopholes" discussed above (soft money, issue ads). Its partner bill in Senate, the bi-partisan McCain-Feingold bill was killed on Tuesday, October 19^th. The bill’s main thrust is its ban on soft money contributions to national parties from individuals, corporation, and labor unions. 

The McCain-Feingold Bill Solution to Soft Money: The McCain-Feingold bill ends the soft money system by prohibiting candidates and national political parties from raising soft money ... In other words, the current practice of raising unlimited soft money contributions from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals, and then channeling this money into federal elections would end. The national parties would be required to raise all of their funds under the limits and restrictions in the law. (Common Cause, Washington Watchdog) 

Past versions of this bill were much more sweeping in their attempts to solve a wide array of problems, including issue advocacy from donors outside the scope of federal limitations.

One of the most vociferous opponents to this bill was Mitch McConnell. 

Link to an excerpt from the debate between McCain and McConnell in which the former invokes a new book by Elizabeth Drew called "The Corruption of American Politics". He states that he is simply trying to reform a system which engenders corruption, rather than blame a corrupt group of people. Dodging the point of  the debate, the latter makes several logically unspectacular and pointed remarks insisting that McCain name specific corrupt people as proof of need for reform.

While McConnell’s remarks add no new intellectual substance to our debate, McCain points out an issue which appeared earlier when we read excerpts from Congressmen who discussed the inevitable bind each representative finds himself in when it comes to the truths of the campaign system. There will always be conflict when representatives rely on one source for the funding to campaign and another for votes. The two cannot always have common agendas.

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