For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 27, 2002
President Signs Campaign Finance Reform Act
Statement by the President
Today I have signed into law H.R. 2356, the "Bipartisan Campaign
Reform Act of 2002." I believe that this legislation,
although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system
for Federal campaigns.
The bill reforms our system of financing campaigns in several
important ways. First, it will prevent unions and
corporations from making unregulated, "soft" money contri-butions -- a
legislative step for which I repeatedly have called.
Often,
these groups take political action without the consent of their members
or shareholders, so that the influence of these groups on elections
does not necessarily comport with the actual views of the individuals
who comprise these organizations. This prohibition will help
to right that imbalance.
Second, this law will raise the
decades-old limits on giving imposed on individuals who wish to support
the candidate of their choice, thereby advancing my stated principle
that election reform should strengthen the role of individual citizens
in the political process.
Third, this legislation creates
new disclosure requirements and compels speedier compliance with
existing ones, which will promote the free and swift flow of
information to the public regarding the activities of groups and
individuals in the political process.
I long have believed
that complete and immediate disclosure of the source of campaign
contributions is the best way to reform campaign finance.
These provisions of the bill will go a long way toward fixing some
of the most pressing problems in campaign finance
today. They will result in an election finance system that
encourages greater individual participation, and provides the public
more accurate and timely information, than does the present
system. All of the American electorate will benefit from
these measures to strengthen our democracy.
However, the bill does have flaws. Certain provisions
present serious constitutional concerns. In particular, H.R.
2356 goes farther than I originally proposed by preventing all
individuals, not just unions and corporations, from making donations to
political parties in connection with Federal elections.
I
believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be
expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted,
questions arise under the First Amendment.
I also have
reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue
advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on
issues of public import in the months closest to an
election. I expect that the courts will resolve these
legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.
As a policy matter, I would have preferred a bill that included a
provision to protect union members and shareholders from involuntary
political activities undertaken by their
leadership.
Individuals have a right not to have their money
spent in support of candidates or causes with which they disagree, and
those rights should be better protected by law. I hope that
in the future the Congress and I can work together to remedy this
defect of the current financing structure.
This legislation is the culmination of more than 6 years of debate
among a vast array of legislators, citizens, and
groups. Accordingly, it does not represent the full ideals
of any one point of view.
But it does represent progress in
this often-contentious area of public policy debate. Taken as a whole,
this bill improves the current system of financing for Federal
campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 27, 2002.
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