Newswise — MCCAIN-FEINGOLD ABOUT MORE THAN FREE SPEECH -- Plaintiffs from groups as diverse as the ACLU to the NRA argued before a special session of the U.S. Supreme Court this week that the new regulations on campaign finance included in the McCain-Feingold law are an attack on the First Amendment. However, Temple political science professor Robin Kolodny, who serves on the academic advisory board for the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, says its anyone's guess if the law will stand. She believes it passes constitutional muster and that the law has more to do with disclosure and trying to bring competition back to politics than putting limits on free speech. "Before this law, corporations and labor unions could spend unlimited amounts of money on these issue ads," says Kolodny. "As long as they didn't use a few magic words like 'vote for our candidate' they were completely unregulated. So you have corporations setting up faux special interest groups and running these ads saying 'Candidate X is a great guy who cares about senior citizens.' Under McCain-Feingold, if the ad uses a candidate's name or picture it's a campaign ad, which seems pretty obvious to me." Kolodny speculates that one reason lawmakers from both parties may oppose the law, which is officially known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), is the effect it may have on incumbents. "Soft money has led to less and less real competition in political races. In Pennsylvania, for example, you might as well not even think about running for the House of Representatives unless you can raise at least $2 million," she says. Dr. Kolodny co-authored the chapter "National Parties after BCRA" for the just-released book Life After Reform: When the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act Meets Politics.
BRINGING IN U.N. TROOPS WON'T STOP IRAQ VIOLENCE -- The Bush administration's new willingness to allow the United Nations to play a greater role in the rebuilding of Iraq and the possibility of involving U.N. peacekeepers or other international forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom may help heal strained international relations. But the idea that such a move will mollify Iraqi resistors enough to lay down their arms is a dangerous illusion, says Temple University military historian Greg Urwin. "Iraq will still be occupied, and Saddam loyalists and Iraqi nationalists will still resent the fact that their country is being run by foreign troops. It will make no difference if some of the occupation forces consist of Muslims. A common religion did not prevent Somalian gunmen from killing Pakistani peacekeepers a decade ago. Likewise, Islamic terrorists based in neighboring countries will depict international forces as pawns of the United States and target them along with American troops." And while involving UN peacekeepers will mean that soldiers from somewhere other than America will absorb some of the casualties in future terrorist and guerrilla attacks, it could also lead to military difficulties. Differences in language, training, tactics, communications equipment, and morale will affect the response time of troops from different nations. In addition to these factors, national rivalries may also hamper true cooperation in an international force," says Urwin. .
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