Congressional turnover rates are ridiculously low. But the identity of representatives hardly matters, compared to their politics. As long as soft money is unlimited, incumbents who anger the rich and powerful can be replaced with toadies. Incumbency is a result of this problem, not its cause. The deeper problem is private control of the election process, which determines who runs in the first place, and who wins almost every time.
Smith also harbors a naive faith that advertising can compare to news, pamphlets, or public debates as a source of reliable information. Advertising reaches more people, but its claims are dubious, its arguments usually specious, and its packaging paramount. Smith ignores the perverse incentives created by advertising dollars. News coverage costs the networks money, but advertising makes them money. So TV news coverage of political campaigns drops precipitously, while advertising sales increase to compensate. This fattens the media companies, closes the system (most people can't afford TV ads), and trivializes mainstream political debate.
McCain-Feingold does curtail some freedoms. This is not illegitimate, because it thereby creates others with broader scope. Smith should weigh competing freedoms, not ignore half the competitors.
Avery Kolers
Louisville, KY
At no time have I ever said, "Hey, if McCain-Feingold screws up elections even more, great. It'll convince people we need to have public financing," the quote attributed to me in Michael Lynch's interview. The fraudulent quotation, paraphrased from an out-of-context quote that appeared in a story on National Review Online, suggests that I am cynically supporting McCain-Feingold because I believe it will make our campaign finance system even worse than it is now, leaving nothing but public financing as a reasonable solution. Even the original quote says nothing of the sort.
I do believe that a public financing program for federal elections would best serve our fundamental democratic values. But I also believe that the provisions in the McCain-Feingold bill eliminating soft money and regulating sham issue ads will represent huge improvements in the current campaign finance system. I don't believe there is any credible evidence that the bill will hobble the political parties or leave candidates powerless to respond to interest groups, and I would not support the bill if I did.
Deborah Goldberg
Brennan Center for Justice
New York University School of Law
Michael W. Lynch replies: My apologies to Ms. Goldberg, who feels Mr. Smith's interpretation of her quote was unfair. The interview does make it clear that Mr. Smith was paraphrasing her original quote. His comment read, "she essentially told National Review Online...." For the record, here's what she actually said: "If candidates are concerned about spending by independent groups, it might make them think more seriously about public financing."
Sentenced to Death
I very much enjoyed Cathy Young's "McVeigh to MacBeth" (July). I am dismayed by rightists who argue for capital punishment, particularly when they're in the "Government as an Instrument for Moral Good" school of thought. The argument that "moral rectitude demands collective action" has been at the core of almost all of the abuses of government power recorded throughout history.
How do death penalty activists rationally justify entitling the collective self to do what we would never permit individuals to do? Except in the very narrow cases of self-defense or defending our borders, we as citizens are forbidden to take up force of any kind against each other, no matter how just our cause. Why is it that if we get together and call it a "legal system," this behavior suddenly is legitimate? It's nothing more than mob rule.
Tim Daneliuk
tundra@tundraware.com
Cathy Young properly takes Paul Cassel to task for his insistence that the exoneration of innocents on death row proved that "the system worked." The resources currently devoted to investigating and exposing cases of innocent people on death rows around the country are extremely limited, so it's rare that anyone tries to prove the innocence of people who have already been executed -- such an investigation won't directly save lives. But investigations of the executed might give us one thing: the grisly footnote to prove to death penalty apologists how well the system might not have worked in the past.
Dan Karlan
Waldwick, NJ
Cathy Young's article missed the point completely. Revenge is in no way a moral action. The only moral justification for capital punishment -- or any killing of a human being, for that matter -- is self-defense. And when someone is so dangerous that he will likely be a deadly threat to others in the future, then death may be the moral solution.
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