Carnegie Forum on Money and Politics

January 26, 2004


On January 26, 2004, Carnegie Corporation of New York held a Forum on Money and Politics, with Senator John McCain (R-AZ) as the featured speaker. A panel discussion followed Senator McCain’s keynote address; it focused on the future of campaign finance reform and included Corporation grantees Charles E. Kolb, president, Committee for Economic Development; Chellie Pingree, president, Common Cause; and Trevor Potter, general counsel, The Reform Institute.

One month before the forum took place, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that essentially upheld Congress' right to limit the influence of money in politics. The ruling meant that most of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act—more popularly known as the McCain-Feingold law, after the two senators who sponsored it—McCain and Russell Feingold (D-WI)—would stand, and would apply to the 2004 presidential election.

Over the past 11 years, The Corporation’s investment in campaign finance reform—approximately $16 million—is viewed by many as having had a major role in building the “modern” campaign financing reform movement. In introducing Senator McCain to the approximately 100 policymakers, leaders in the nonprofit field, voting rights and other activists gathered at the forum, Vartan Gregorian said, “Campaign finance reform is not a Democratic or Republican issue—it is an American issue. To keep our democracy strong and vital, we all have to work toward clean elections, toward reducing the influence of money and special interests in the choices available to us as citizens.”

Echoing Gregorian’s concerns, McCain pointed to the Supreme Court decision, saying the Court had made it clear that “money is not free speech.” He also credited much of the success of the McCain-Feingold legislation to the fact that “enough Americans were aroused by the issues that they demanded that we bring about change” in the way we fund election campaigns. He concluded his remarks by saying, “There is great dissatisfaction throughout the country with the state of politics in America,” and called for bipartisan reform in a number of other areas, including Social Security and Medicare.