Supreme Court to weigh McCain-Feingold law

A McCain advisor familiar with the passage of the McCain-Feingold bill in 2001 explained how the “level playing field” amendment got into the bill by saying, “When you're negotiating a complicated piece of legislation, particularly when it directly affects the members who are voting on it, it is an arduous negotiation to bring in the 60 votes you need in the Senate.”

The advisor added, "Some people figure McCain wrote a bill and it was passed and nothing was added by other members. I'm not saying that he was for or against it (the millionaire’s amendment), I'm just saying that’s what happens as you move a bill through the Senate."

In making the case for the amendment, Durbin told his fellow senators on March 20, 2001, "We are addressing probably one of the most complicated problems we face, a Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo which said that a person who decides to run for office and is personally wealthy cannot be limited in the amount of personal wealth they spend in order to obtain this office."

“Meanwhile, other candidates who are not personally wealthy face all sorts of limitations on how much money they can raise,” the Illinois Democrat said.

DeWine told his colleagues that the amendment would “enhance the marketplace of ideas — the very foundation of our democracy — by giving candidates who are not independently wealthy an opportunity to get their message across to the voters as well.”

DeWine predicted that “the courts are likely to uphold this provision because it addresses the public perception that there is something inherently corrupt about a wealthy candidate who can use a substantial amount of his or her own personal resources to win an election….”

He contended that “the public looks at this (phenomenon of self-funded candidates) and, frankly, says something is just wrong with this.”

But one of DeWine's colleagues mocked the notion that incumbents needed help against millionaire challengers.

Video McCain jokes about his age April 14: Sen. John McCain takes questions on his age and talks about his criteria for selecting a running mate. NBC News Web Extra

“This is what I would call incumbency protection,” said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. He ridiculed the idea that “somehow we (incumbent senators) are sort of impoverished candidates” and noted that senators “raise money all the time during our incumbency.”

There’s evidence that not all voters are disturbed by wealthy candidates who decide to write their own checks to win office.

Cases in point:

• New Jersey’s Jon Corzine spent $60 million of his own fortune in 2000 to win a Senate seat.
• Michael Bloomberg spent more than $50 million of his money to become mayor of New York City in 2001.
• Herb Kohl spent $7 million to win a Senate seat in Wisconsin in 1994 and another $5 million when he won a second term in 2000. Kohl loaned his campaign $6.25 million for his 2006 race, which he won by a landslide.
• In this year's Republican presidential race, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney lent his campaign more than $42 million from his own bank account. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has so far lent her campaign $5 million.

Voters seem able to discriminate between self-funded candidates whom they like, such as Kohl, Corzine, and Bloomberg, and ones they reject, such as Ross Perot, who spent $60 million on his futile presidential bid in 1992.

McCain still 'proud of the accomplishment'
McCain himself is not likely to be in the audience at the Supreme Court Tuesday morning when the millionaires' amendment case is argued.

McCain senior advisor Mark Salter said, “There are obviously the Republicans that didn't like it [McCain-Feingold], but he hasn't changed his views about it or anything else. He's proud of the accomplishment.”

So far, the McCain-Feingold law has not been a major theme of McCain's campaign, which is no surprise given his need in the primaries to appeal to conservatives who may abhor the law.

Adam Aigner-Treworgy of NBC News and National Journal contributed to this story.

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