John C. Bonifaz is the founder and executive director of the National Voting Rights
Institute. Founded in 1994, the Institute is a non-profit organization specializing in campaign
finance litigation. The Institute serves as a prominent legal defense center for campaign finance
reform legislation and ballot initiatives when such reforms face court attacks following their
enactment. The Institute provides reformers with constitutional review of proposed legislation
and ballot initiatives. The Institute is a leader of the new movement to revisit and reverse the
U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, which equated money with speech and which
struck down congressional campaign spending limits. Further, the Institute is recognized as a
pioneer in redefining the campaign finance system as the newest voting rights barrier, launching a
series of court challenges to the system on voting rights grounds. Drawing on a line of U.S.
Supreme Court cases invalidating the poll tax, high candidate filing fees, and exclusionary white
primaries, the Institute argues that today's system of privately-financed election campaigns
operates as the newest wealth barrier in the political process.

Mr. Bonifaz formerly served as the staff attorney for the Center for Responsive Politics in
Washington, D.C., a leading research authority on the influence of private money in the electoral
process. Mr. Bonifaz is the co-author with Jamin Raskin, a constitutional law professor at
American University's Washington College of Law, of two law review articles which argue that
the current campaign finance system violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection for
all: "Equal Protection and The Wealth Primary," Yale Law & Policy Review (Winter 1993) and
"The Constitutional Imperative and Practical Superiority of Democratically Financed Elections,"
Columbia Law Review (Spring 1994). He is also the co-author, with Professor Raskin, of The
Wealth Primary: Campaign Fundraising and the Constitution, published in November 1994 by the
Center for Responsive Politics.

Mr. Bonifaz is a 1999 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In awarding the five-year fellowship, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation stated:

Bonifaz, a public interest lawyer, uses innovative litigation to reexamine campaign
finance reform arguments typically debated on first amendment grounds. Through the
National Voting Rights Institute, an organization he founded, Bonifaz recasts the legal
arguments to focus on fourteenth amendment protections, challenging the relationship
between money and politics.

Mr. Bonifaz is a 1992 cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. He has written and spoken extensively around the country on the anti-democratic nature of the private financing of public elections.

Steven

BOARD OF ADVISORS - Jonathan S. Abady, Attorney, Emery Cuti Brinckerhoff & Abady PC - Kathryn Abrams, Professor, Cornell Law School - Joaquin Avila,
Attorney and voting rights specialist - Derrick Bell, Professor, New York University's School of Law - James Bernard, Writer, editor and magazine publisher -
Jacqueline Bernen, Attorney, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund - Victor Bolden, Attorney, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund - Cristóbal
Bonifaz, Attorney, Law Offices of Cristóbal Bonifaz - Stacy DeBroff, Founder & attorney advisor, Office of Public Interest Advising, Harvard Law School
Donziger, Attorney and author Richard Ford, Assistant professor, Stanford Law School Margaret Fung, Executive Director, Asian American Legal Defense &
Education Fund-Ed Garvey, Attorney, Garvey & Associates - Gerald Heben, Attorney and voting rights specialist - Ozell Hudson, Jr., Executive Director, Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of Boston - Deruse M. Hulett, Attorney, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund-Randy Kehler, Activist and
founder of the Working Group on Electoral Democracy Arthur Kinoy, Attorney and professor, Public Interest Law Center, Rutgers University Frank Michelman,
Professor, Harvard Law School - Ellen Miller, Executive Director, Public Campaign Marty Oberman, Attorney, Law Offices of Marty Oberman Charles
Ogletree, Professor, Harvard Law School - Richard Parker, Professor, Harvard Law School - Jamun Raskin, Professor, Amencan University's Washington College of
Law-Florence Wagman Roisman, Associate Professor, Indiana University School of Law Indianapolis Andrés Saldaña, Attorney - Leonard Schroeter, Attorney.
Stritmatter Kessler Whelan Withey - Robert Stern, General Counsel, Center for Governmental Studies - Julie Su, Attorney, Asian Pacific American Legal Center •
Jordan Yeager, Attorney, Boockvar und Yeager

.organizations listed for purposes of identification only.

TOTAL P.26

In October 1999, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) introduced a campaign finance bill that he offered as a potential compromise-alternative to the McCain-Feingold soft money ban.

When Senator Hagel introduced his legislation, Senator Mitch McConnell (RKY), the Senate's leading opponent of campaign finance reform, commented favorably on the bill, saying, "This is our best hope for a thoughtful, constructive debate." The Hagel bill, he also said, represented a "responsible middle ground."

Senator McConnell who chairs the Senate Rules Committee, is scheduled to begin a series of hearings this week on the Hagel bill, and is expected to have the Committee mark up the legislation in mid-May.

The Hagel bill is completely illusionary reform.

In real terms, the Hagel bill would not prevent any unlimited soft money contributions from being raised by federal candidates and spent through their political parties to benefit their campaigns.

At the same time the Hagel bill would triple all the hard money limits on individual contributions - including the overall aggregate limit on what an individual can give to all federal candidates and their political parties in a calendar year.

Hard money limits apply to funds raised by federal candidates and their political parties that are spent on influencing federal elections. Soft money is raised outside federal contribution limits and is spent by the political parties ostensibly on "party building" activities.

In reality, however, soft money is simply a means for evading the hard money limits. Soft money is raised by federal candidates and spent by their parties, like hard money, to help elect federal candidates.

Under the McCain-Feingold bill, there are three essential components in establishing an effective soft money ban:

National parties are banned from accepting, soliciting, directing, or spending soft money.

State parties are prohibited from spending soft money to influence federal elections, such as by paying for so-called “issue ads" that in reality promote or attack a federal candidate.

· Federal officeholders and candidates are prohibited from raising or directing soft money contributions.

These provisions combine to ensure that national parties, federal officeholders and federal candidates stop dealing with soft money, and that state parties stop serving as vehicles for laundering soft money into federal races.

The Hagel bill purports to establish a so-called "cap" or limit on soft money
contributions. But the "cap" applies only to contributions to national
parties, and the other two essential elements of a soft money ban found in
the McCain bill are totally absent.

As a result, the Hagel bill won't stop unlimited soft money contributions from being raised and spent to support federal candidates. Under the Hagel bill:

Individuals, PACs, corporations, and labor unions are allowed to make soft money contributions to national parties of $60,000 per year, or $120,000 per election cycle.

Even under these so-called “limits," huge soft money contributions will continue to be made to national parties. A corporation and its PAC, for example, could contribute a combined total of $120,000 in soft money per year or $240,000 per election cycle. A labor union and its PAC could do the same. A corporate CEO, his corporation, and the corporation's PAC could contibute a combined total of $180,000 in soft money per year or $360,000 per election cycle.

There are no restrictions on federal officeholders and candidates raising
unlimited soft money contributions.

And, there are no restrictions to prevent state parties from being used as a vehicle to spend soft money to support federal candidates such as by spending soft money on so-called "issue ads" that promote and attack federal

candidates. (Most soft money spent to help federal candidates today is

already being spent through state parties.)

The absence of these key restrictions means that regardless of the unacceptable soft money "caps" provided in the Hagel bill, the legislation will have no real effect in stopping the flow of unlimited soft money contributions to help federal candidates.

Federal officeholders and candidates will continue to raise unlimited soft money contributions from donors, as they do now. And it is this direct relationship between federal officeholders and candidates, and the donors of huge unlimited contributions intended to help them, that is the fundamental "corruption" danger involved here.

Instead of having these contributions given to their national parties, however, and then transferred to state parties to be spent on "issue ads," federal officeholders or candidates, under the Hagel bill, will simply have the contributions given directly to the state parties to be spent on these ads.

Nothing will change.

All that will happen under the Hagel approach is that a mechanical modification will be made. The current middleman in this operation — the national parties — will be dropped, but the corrupting unlimited soft money scheme will continue unabated.

The following two examples of current activities show just how easily this adjustment will be made.

⚫ In late 1999, Governor George W. Bush's campaign set up a joint fundraising committee with 20 Republican state parties to raise hard money for the state parties to use in the 2000 federal elections.

If the Hagel bill were law, all the Bush campaign would have to do is establish a similar joint fundraising committee with Republican state parties to raise soft money.

Bush and his "Pioneer" fundraisers would raise unlimited soft money
contributions for this joint fundraising committee, which would then transfer
the funds to the state parties to be spent on ads promoting Bush and attacking
his opponent. (As noted earlier, most soft money being spent today to help
federal candidates is already being spent by state parties. The soft money
is transferred to the state parties by the national parties.)

Vice President Gore, of course, could do the same thing.
The Hagel bill would not cover or prevent any of this.

In 1999, First Lady Hillary Clinton's campaign set up a joint fundraising committee with the national party's Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) to raise unlimited soft money contributions.

The joint committee - called New York Senate 2000 — then transferred the soft money funds to the DSCC, which transferred the money to the New York Democratic state party. The state party then spent the soft money on ads promoting Hillary Clinton.

Under the Hagel bill, all you would have to do is eliminate the DSCC from the process. Hillary Clinton would continue raising the same unlimited soft money contributions that she is raising now. The funds would go to a joint fundraising committee set up directly with the New York Democratic state party, instead of with the DSCC. The state party would then spend the soft money on ads promoting Hillary Clinton, just as they are doing now.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani has just set up a similar joint fundraising committee with the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) to raise soft money. The Mayor's committee is called Giuliani Victory Fund.

In these circumstances, the joint fundraising committees at the DSCC and NRSC function, in effect, as "bank accounts" for the Senate candidates. The candidates could just as easily establish these “bank accounts" with the New York Republican and Democratic state parties, with no impact on the raising or spending of unlimited soft money.

Joint fundraising committees have been set up by the Democrats to raise
soft money for Senate races being held this year in New York,
California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan and Missouri. Joint
fundraising committees have been set up by the Republicans to raise soft
money for Senate races in New York, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

This relatively new approach reportedly pioneered by the Republicans - institutionalizes and systematizes direct relationships between the federal candidate and the candidate's soft money donors. It totally undermines the limits on contributions to federal candidates, and makes this evasion of the campaign finance laws even more brazen and dangerous.

The bottom line here is that the soft money "caps" in the Hagel bill will not restrict the flow of any unlimited soft money contributions into federal elections.