CFR Screws Congressional Black Caucus

RUSH: You know, we tried to warn them. We tried to warn them. We told them, “Campaign finance reform is going to screw you guys. Campaign finance reform is going to set you back. Campaign finance reform is not what you think it is.” They wouldn’t listen, but now: “Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are teaming up with conservative Republicans to push for the first major changes in the 2002 campaign-finance reform bill, most admitting that they made a mistake in voting for the bill three years ago. ‘If I had the chance to vote again, I wouldn’t vote the way I voted,’ said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, New York Democrat, who along with most of the CBC supported the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act after they were promised by Democratic leaders that the bill would not harm their constituents or funding bases in order to garner their support.” Well… “Three years and a failed presidential election later, black politicians saw their political grass-roots organizations starved for funds under the new rules, as so-called ‘527s,’ private political groups so named for the Internal Revenue Service code provision under which they are organized were able to raise unlimited amounts of money for partisan purposes, subsequently siphoning off the cash” from other organizations that used to get it. See, the Congressional Black Caucus is part of the Democratic Party. You can’t get money. You can’t give money to the party. You have to give it to 527! I warned them. We warned them on this program this was going to come back and bite them.
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, former mayor of New Orleans, said, “‘It definitely affected the ability of the historic system of African-American community groups to [register and mobilize black voters] the way they had always done it.’… Although the effect of the money stream on the organizations was visible, the tracking of the money is not. The two major political parties always have been secretive about how much money they spend on voter registration and get-out-the vote activities….” But nevertheless: “[B]lack organizations may have felt left out because most of the 527s targeted their dollars toward advertising in the northern Midwest and Southwest and not in the Deep South, where the majority of blacks in the United States live.” Now, in addition to that do we not recall throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, black leaders threatening John Kerry, “You better spend some money on us,” and then Kerry did an ad or two and they didn’t like the ads. “That ad is not working, Senator Kerry. They’d come out and demand a different kind of ad. Well, they didn’t have the money to play with to get all the ads they wanted because of campaign finance reform. So they have… Yeah, and Kerry kept some of the money. He kept some of the money to pay off the loan on his house. Well, his wife’s house, his half of the house, whatever that’s about. But nevertheless they were left out in the cold — sort of like being on the back of the bus.
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