McCain-Feingold Isn't Progress; It's Progressivism

The Supreme Court dealt another blow to free-speech rights last month, ruling 5-4 that the government may regulate how much money a state political party spends in support of its own candidates. Some members of the House of Representatives, scheduled to debate the House version of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill when they reconvene after the July 4 recess, hailed the ruling.

Many Republicans and Democrats and a majority of the Supreme Court seem to agree on two things about campaign finance. First, money equals corruption. Second, because there is an awful lot of money in politics today, our politics must be awfully corrupt. That's why they say government should further regulate how Americans speak and spend their money.

Why all the excitement on Capitol Hill for campaign finance reform, which limits the most important kind of speech--political speech? And why, for all the sanctimonious talk about "getting special interests out of politics," does no one mention the interest that will benefit most from increased campaign finance regulation: government itself? The answer is Progressivism, a radical philosophy that swept across the United States a century ago. Regulating how Americans participate in politics is just one of its legacies.

The brainchild of such Darwinian thinkers and political leaders such as Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, John Dewey and Herbert Croly, Progressivism sought to replace limited, constitutional government by consent with unlimited, bureaucratic government. Government by bureaucratic fiat was regarded as an innovative reform because professional bureaucrats would be impartial in doling out justice. Unlike elected, partisan officials, professional bureaucrats would not be beholden to "special interests" or corrupted by money in politics. Sound familiar?

The one thing that has stood in the way of Progressive politics is the Constitution. The U.S. founders understood that, historically, governments usually have been the usurper of liberties. Thus they believed it important to protect individual rights by explicitly limiting the power of government in a written constitution.

For the Progressives, however, this is a problem. Limited government can neither regulate our lives nor redistribute our wealth in the name of "social justice." As Woodrow Wilson put it, the U.S. Constitution is little more than "political witchcraft" from the past, and ought to be discarded so that we can get on with the Progressive project of building a "national state."