Campaign Funding

Re “House Backs Bill to Reform Election Funding,” Aug. 4: It must be an election year because Congress is wasting its time on meaningless legislation. The Shays-Meehan bill will not make it through the Senate and, more significantly, it is dead on arrival at the Supreme Court. The Constitution’s framers surely had political speech in mind when they wrote the 1st Amendment.

In today’s society, political debate is often carried out, expensively, through the media. As House Majority Whip Tom DeLay noted, this bill is clearly at odds with “our most precious freedoms” and was signed by some members simply as an election-year campaign ploy. While meaningful campaign reform is a laudable goal, the Shays-Meehan bill is a mere political gesture that should be an embarrassment to every House member who cast an “aye” vote.

KEP WHITEFORD

South Pasadena