McCain-Feingold Bill Is a ‘Wake-Up Call’

* So, Michael Kelly thinks it “bizarre” that the McCain-Feingold bill somehow attacks the 1st Amendment while comfortably sailing through the Senate (“Campaign Finance Reform Bill Runs Afoul of the Law,” Commentary, April 4). Kelly, like the right-wing Supreme Court, is salivating like a rabid dog at the bill’s “certain” judicial gutting. We’ve all witnessed the gang of five before in their creative, if not tortured, legal interpretations. I can’t wait to read the uniquely twisted logic of Antonin Scalia, hear the glib (cough) William Rehnquist pronouncement and the Clarence Thomas version of “The Sounds of Silence.”

For the first time since honor, ethics and statesmanship moved to the alimentary canal of American politics and favored the rich, we have an opportunity to restore good character to the domain of the brain. If McCain-Feingold is so anti-1st Amendment why does the siren of attack emanate from the elite class and not from the lowly majority?

McCain-Feingold is both a wake-up call and a last chance for greased politicians to go straight, take their castor oil and earn back the long-lost respect of the people.

STEPHEN PITT

Moreno Valley

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The proposed finance reforms threaten to be incumbent protection laws. To provide a fighting chance to new and third party candidates, any reform legislation should provide exemptions from contribution limitations to any candidates or parties that did not receive at least 25% of the vote in a prior election or that do not receive at least 25% in two major opinion preference polls. There should be no limitation on how much an individual can contribute to such candidates or parties.

ERNST F. GHERMANN

Winnetka