Letter: Don’t allow campaign finance reform to cut into First Amendment

Tuesday, Aug. 11, 1998 | 10:09 a.m.

It was soon after I was first elected that I began my work on the issue of campaign finance reform by forming the Bipartisan Freshman Campaign Finance Reform Task Force. It was through this medium that I, along with a bipartisan group of my freshman colleagues, laid the groundwork for meaningful and long-term reform in the campaign fund-raising process.

After six months of working on this task force, in July 1997, our efforts became known as the "Bipartisan Campaign Integrity Act." This legislation subsequently became the vehicle for all campaign finance reform proposals in the House of Representatives.

A major concern in this reform process became the preservation of the First Amendment of the Constitution -- the freedom of speech. As it were, our legislation laid out a plan to combat the recurring threat of campaign fund-raising corruption while at the same time preserving and protecting the constitutional right to free speech. Our Founding Fathers said it best: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ..."

My duty as an elected official is to uphold the Constitution. It was by defending this inalienable right that I chose to support legislation which would reform our current campaign fund-raising laws in the most sensible and most effective manner possible.

Rep. Jim Gibbons