First Amendment lockout

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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"

When Lewis Carroll wrote those famous words, known since to many generations of young people, it is highly unlikely he had in mind their application to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act signed into law by President George W. Bush on March 27, 2002. But he might as well have.

The use of the word "Reform" to describe this monstrously complex piece of federal legislation that adds mountains of red tape to an already cumbersome federal election process, and in so doing tramples on the First Amendment to the Constitution, would indeed make Humpty Dumpty proud. Only in the eye of Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and the legislation's primary sponsor, and in the best tradition of Humpty's philosophy, could this law be deemed -- with a straight face -- to "reform" anything.

Whether the First Amendment will be able to rebound from this body blow remains to be seen; but it's down for the count right now.

"How," one might ask, "with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate, and a Republican president self-proclaimed to be 'conservative,' did we reach the point at which a group of unelected bureaucrats [the Federal Election Commission], now wield veto power over what candidates for federal office and organizations supporting them, can say in the crucial weeks leading to an election?" "Why," you might further inquire, "would the Republican Party deliver to us this monster that the Democrat Party, with nearly 40 years of being in charge of the Congress until 1994, was unable or unwilling to deliver?" "Surely," you would conclude, "this is a bad joke. This cannot be true."

Alas, it is no joke. And it is true. The Supreme Court has, after long months of deliberation, spoken; and in the words of its decision -- nearly 300 pages in length, including numerous dissenting opinions -- it has wrought great and perhaps permanent damage to the representative democracy so painstakingly crafted by our Founding Fathers.

All this was done with the willing participation of a majority party in power that professes to stand for and do the precise opposite of what this law and the opinion upholding it does. And what exactly is that? What does the Campaign Law of 2002 (I refuse to give it the credibility that might come through use of the word "Reform" in its title) do?