Giuliani Stakes Out New Terrain on Campaign-Finance
by Ryan Sager
Mon, 25 Jun 2007 at 5:50 PM
updated Mon, 25 Jun 2007 at 5:57 PM
Rudy Giuliani has weighed in on the Wisconsin Right to Life decision (see our response roundup, still being updated, here):
"I support this Supreme Court decision, which is a welcome victory for free speech and personal liberty.
"The ruling protects freedom to participate in the electoral process and recognizes political free speech is the foundation of our First Amendment rights."
This is big news, as Mr. Giuliani had been supportive of McCain-Feingold in particular, and campaign-finance reform in general, in the past.
Club for Growth detailed Mr. Giuliani's position in its white paper on him earlier this year:
Political Free Speech
Maximizing prosperity requires sound government policies. When the government strays from these policies, citizens must be free to exercise their constitutional rights to petition and criticize those policies and the politicians responsible for them.
Rudy Giuliani's record on protecting political free speech falls woefully short. When John McCain launched his campaign finance crusade on the political stage, Mayor Giuliani was an unabashed supporter, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer in a 2000 interview: "I'm a very, very strong supporter of campaign finance reform. A very strong supporter of McCain-Feingold for a long, long time now."[79]
As recently as December 2006, Giuliani refused to back away from his previous effusiveness. When radio host Dennis Prager pressed him, asking "Why shouldn't people just be allowed to give any amount of money they want to any candidate, and just have it publicly known? Why should there be a law limiting that freedom?" the notoriously blunt Mayor hesitated, but ultimately embraced his previous support: "I think there are very good arguments on either side of that. I've always lived under a campaign finance law that had limitations on it, so I'm sort of pretty comfortable with it."[80]
Locally, Giuliani was embroiled in a number of campaign finance debates, but none of these demonstrated a general inclination to protect political speech.[81] Worse, dubbed by John McCain as his "soul mate" on campaign finance reform,[82] Mayor Giuliani offers no compelling reason to think that he would oppose further restrictions on the First Amendment.
It seems difficult to reconcile the two positions. Mr. Giuliani may never have specifically addressed the ad ban, but I've never heard a skeptical word from him on the issue until now.
Mr. Giuliani's new position is certainly one conservatives will be happy to hear him take (this libertarian finds it to be good news), but it puts him in the company of Mitt Romney, whose newfound loathing of campaign-finance reform also represents something of an "evolution."
UPDATE (7:29 p.m.): The Giuliani campaign confirms that the mayor has never publicly addressed the ad ban in McCain-Feingold — and thus argues that he cannot be inconsistent on the issue. He supported McCain-Feingold before it was passed — some versions of the bill had the ad ban, some didn't. Mr. Giuliani has in recent months stated that the law could stand to be revised and improved; but, again, he's made no specific statements for or against the ad ban.
The campaign also notes that Supreme Court decision today relates to an "as applied" challenge to the ad ban — meaning, how the FEC has chosen to enforce it. This leaves open the question of whether the mayor supports the ban, but thinks it should be applied differently. The campaign, however, declined to get into "hypotheticals."
(Mr. Giuliani's support for the contribution limits in McCain-Feingold also remains in tact.)
Given that the ad ban was a principal component of McCain-Feingold when it passed in 2002 — and has long been considered by conservatives its greatest offense against the First Amendment (George F. Will has compared it to the Alien and Sedition Acts, I believe on more than one occasion) — it's notable that Mr. Giuliani has never before spoken a word against it.
Therefore, this is a clear political shift, from being joined at the hip with Senator McCain on the issue to staking out more conservative-friendly ground. This move is, however, short of a Romney-style flip-flop.
Related Topics: GOP Primary
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