5/16/2018: RESURRECTING AND RE-INVIGORATING McCAIN-FEINGOLD

[johnkarls]

.
The following e-mail was sent at 12:23 pm on 5/20/2018 to Senator John McCain via the “Contact Form” on http://www.mccain.senate.gov.

Two things should be noted.

First, the participants at our 5/16/2018 meeting, in unanimously approving the principles contained in this e-mail, thought that it should be directed to Senator McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, who as a Co-Host of ABC’s “The View” might be best positioned to marshal public opinion.

However, there was no way to e-mail Ms. McCain at ABC.

Second, our e-mail campaigns traditionally request all of our members to send an already-prepared e-mail such as the one that appears below (A) to the decision maker, and (B) to all of the friends/acquaintances of our members so that, under “Six Degrees of Separation” theory, a zillion identical e-mails will quickly occupy the decision maker’s in box.

However, in the light of Senator McCain’s medical condition, everyone is requested NOT to send similar e-mails.


------------------------------E-mail Sent to Sen. John McCain 5/20/2018------------------------------

The Honorable John S. McCain III
Senior U.S. Senator - Arizona

Dear Sir:

Re: Resurrecting and Re-Invigorating McCain-Feingold

We are very sorry to intrude on your privacy following your most-recent surgery last month after which your son-in-law tweeted about your hugging him and asking him to take care of your daughter, Meghan.

However, the members of the monthly 150-member public-policy study group in Salt Lake City that I have facilitated for the last 12.5 years believe that the way political campaigns are financed has long since meant that only large campaign contributors have any influence on public policy and “Democracy in America” is a myth.

And we agreed that American Democracy could be restored with the resurrection and re-invigoration of public financing of political campaigns.

After all, the U.S. Supreme Court in McConnell vs. Federal Election Commission (2003) upheld the Constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold modifications to public financing in all important respects.

And even in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (2010), 8 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices, in focusing on the peripheral issue of “independent expenditures” under McCain-Feingold, said that legal requirements for disclosure of the ultimate source of such expenditures does NOT violate Free Speech.

It has struck us that restoring “Democracy in America” would only require adequate financing for Presidential and Congressional Campaigns.

After all, it was not that long ago that Presidential Candidate Barack Obama pledged in the 2008 election cycle to accept public financing, which meant refusing all campaign contributions. Though he later renounced his pledge when it became clear that campaign contributions would exceed the public financing.

It should be “child’s play” for any law school graduate to draft amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act that would --

(A) extend public financing to Senatorial/Congressional Campaigns for any candidate who renounces campaign contributions and who can show a modicum of support by the voting public, and

(B) MOST IMPORTANTLY, provide levels of public financing equal to what would be available to any opponents from campaign contributions, such as gearing it to the amount of campaign contributions being received by competitors (or to recent historical levels if all competing candidates have chosen public financing).

[Indeed, it strikes us that in such a New World, “independent expenditures” accompanied by full disclosure of the sources of such expenditures, would become comparatively insignificant.]

And it strikes us that a simple Press Release from you supporting the resurrection and re-invigoration of the public financing of political campaigns would do quite a bit to get the ball rolling.

And that ultimate success could result from the ability of your daughter, Meghan, as a Co-Host of ABC’s “The View” (with, hopefully, support from all of her Co-Hosts who are presumably patriotic) to marshal public opinion for as long as it takes.

Thank you for your consideration.

And please permit us to say how much we admire how you have coped with adversity during your entire life in order to achieve greatness!!!

Respectfully submitted,

John Karls

PS – We hope you don’t mind our selecting “Thank You” from the 32 choices of topic on your website, but since there was nothing closely related to “Campaign Finance Reform” we thought that “Thank You” was the most appropriate NOT ONLY for all you have done for America BUT ALSO for what you already accomplished with McCain-Feingold.