John McCain And " The Millionaires Amendment "

  Not sure where to start on this one. It seems that presidential wannabe John McCain may have a slight problem with taking the oath "preserve, protect and defend, the Constitution," because a few of his past actions put in some serious doubts on whether he can do that.

   I am thinking of one case, in particular. This one is before the Supreme Court at the moment and it concerns the "millionaires' amendment" which is part of the McCain-Feingold legislation which is supposed to fight corruption among our people running for office in the Senate, House and whatever else.

  So what is this amendment?

The Millionaires’ Amendment is a part of the McCain-Feingold Law passed in 2002 that increases contribution limits for candidates who face opponents who put substantial sums of their personal funds into their own campaigns.

• There is a $350,000 threshold that triggers the Millionaires’ Amendment in House races. 

• In Senate races, it depends on how populous the state is.  For example in Arizona the threshold is $663,040, and in Connecticut it is $514,960.  In a large state like California, the millionaire would have to put in at least $2,454,000 before the Millionaires’ Amendment is triggered.  This link has a list of the threshold amounts for Senate races in every state.

• Once the millionaire candidate trips the spending threshold, the candidate must notify his  opponents and the FEC by filing a FEC Form 10 within 24 hours.
• Opposing candidates then follow the instructions on Form 11 to determine whether or not they have increased limits.

How much do the contribution limits go up?

• In House races, the limits can increase to $6,900 per election.
• In Senate races, the increase in limits depends on how much money the millionaire candidate puts it.  Increased contribution limits will be $6,900 or $13,800 per election.

Under certain circumstances the national and state parties may make unlimited coordinated party expenditures on behalf of their general election candidate.    Source

   Here is how this works, according to Newsweek

When a self-financing House candidate spends more than $350,000, his opponent gets three benefits. The opponent can receive contributions of $6,900, triple the statutory limit of $2,300 per election (primary or general). Second, the donors' tripled contributions are not counted against those donors' aggregate contribution limits for the two-year cycle. Third, the opponent is permitted to coordinate with his party committee unlimited party expenditures that otherwise would be limited by statute. Senate campaigns are subject to even more generous provisions for candidates with self-financing opponents.

This incumbent-protection measure mocked McCain-Feingold's pretense of being concerned exclusively with corruption—candidates cannot corrupt themselves by spending their own money on their own behalf.  

     But wait, there's more!

He ( McCain ) seemed aghast that under the amendment, "A millionaire can spend $1 million and immediately the other person can raise $50 million in coordinated and direct party expenditures." So McCain understood that the amendment punishes self-financing candidates who use their noncorrupting money to disseminate their political speech. And it punishes them by increasing their opponents' access to supposedly corrupting money. But McCain voted for it. Perhaps he, like many other legislators, wanted to "level the playing field." The court, however, has held that it is unconstitutional to legislate equal quantities of speech. More Here

  It would seem that John McCain is in no position to take any kind of oath to defend our Constitution, seeing as he has no idea what is in it, much like his boss Bush.

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