For well over a decade, Chris Shays fought tirelessly to enact greater restrictions on campaign speech, finally suceeding with the passage of the Shays-Meehan (or “McCain-Feingold”) bill in 2002. After, he continued the fight, pushing for still more legal restrictions and for tougher enforcement of the law.
But last fall Shays lost his seat in Congress. And now it turns out his campaign is struggling to pay off mounting debts caused by an apparent embezzlement of some $180,000 or more in campaign funds by his longtime campaign manager and “right hand man,” Michael Sohn.
We take no joy in Shays’s misfortune: it’s another black eye for public integrity (we believe politics is a good thing and most public servants are honorable); it’s created a lot of pain for a man whom, despite our disagreements, we consider an honorable public servant; and young Mr. Sohn has almost certainly ruined his life and promising career. And yet there are a number of lessons to be learned here for the general issue of campaign finance “reform.”
First, for years many reformers have claimed that corruption is a problem of “the system,” rather than corrupt individuals. But in the end, when there is real corruption to be found, it usually comes down to an individual. Nothing in “the system” forced Michael Sohn to embezzle a couple hundred grand.
Second, it is ironic that the Shays campaign may now face added penalties from the Federal Election Commission. It seems a bit absurd, but that’s how it works when campaigns are victims of embezzlement – the embezzler is usually someone with the ability to alter campaign finance reports in order to cover his tracks, so as a result the campaign files false reports with the FEC. This leads to government fines for the already victimized campaign. We wonder if Shays, who constantly criticized the FEC for lax enforcement and sponsored legislation aimed at creating “more vigorous enforcement” will be asking the FEC for some latitiude or forebearance. If so, we wonder if he will be glad that the Commissioners are not too, “serious about their duties to enforce campaign finance laws,” as he said in a 2005 letter urging President Bush to appoint Comissioners who would be less lenient on lawbreakers, such as, it appears, the Shays 2008 campaign. We would support such forebearance – it seems a bit silly to us that the victimized campaign is victimized a second time by its government. But perhaps at some point it will dawn on Mr. Shays that that is true of most campaign finance violations. That vast majority of FEC complaints and enforcement actions have little or nothing to do with the corruption of public officials, but rather penalize honest citizens and candidates for honest mistakes and, in some cases, the crimes of others.
We wonder if the protections that so-called ethics regulation and campaign finance laws give to incumbents will dawn on the former Congressman. He has noted that he would be better able to deal with these problems if he were still in Congress, as he could establish a legal fund to help with the bills. But as a private citizen, he faces added restrictions.
We wonder if it will occur to him that the law – which prohibits him from going back to friends and past supporters who already contributed the legal maximum of $2300 to his 2008 campaign – is doing nothing to prevent “corruption,” as he himself is a private citizen with no plans to run for office. Who is being saved from corruption?
And we wonder if, at some point, Mr. Shays will face the cruelist moment of all – will Mr. Sohn’s actions force Mr. Shays to realize that he spent much of his political career attempting to restrict the speech of his fellow private citizens, without accomplishing much of anything having to do with public corruption? Men such as Shays and his longtime colleague, John McCain, were talented men of enormous influence, who unfortunately and largely unwittingly spent much of their congressional careers barking down the wrong alleys, and working to restrict freedom rather than increase it. That’s sad, too.
