Using Laws to Frustrate Competition

Bradley Smith has this column in today's Washington Post, about the use (abuse) of election laws to limit competition. Smith's column addresses laws that prevent candidates from appearing on the ballot. Carol Platt Liebau, however, quite correctly notes that campaign finance laws are probably the most abused of election laws. For some, these laws are nothing more than cynical ploys aimed at restricting competition. Others are true believers. But what the true believers can't seem to grasp is that whatever the motivation behind their enactment, the fact is that campaign finance laws - and other elections - will in fact be used as weapons on the arsenals of political actors, and accordingly will be abused for partisan gain.