Gingrich calls for elimination of McCain-Feingold reforms

MANCHESTER, N.H. --Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says First Amendment rights need to be expanded, and eliminating the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaign contributions would be a start.

Gingrich, a Republican, suggested allowing people to give any amount to any candidate as long as the donation was reported online within 24 hours.

"Just as tax lawyers always succeed in out-thinking the (Internal Revenue Service) because they stay after five and the IRS goes home, the private-sector lawyers will always out-think the (Federal Election Commission) because they stay after five and the FEC goes home," Gingrich told about 400 people at the Nackey Scripps Loeb First Amendment Awards dinner Monday.

Passed in 2002, McCain-Feingold bans unrestricted donations from labor, corporations and the wealthy to the political parties. Gingrich said the reforms have failed and led only to more negative campaign ads via e-mail, television, direct mail and phone calls.

His attack on campaign finance reforms comes as he and one of the bill's authors, Arizona Sen. John McCain, consider running for president in 2008.

McCain has already formed a presidential exploratory committee while Gingrich says he will not make a decision until September.

Gingrich also called for tougher laws to fight terrorism. He said situations such as the thwarted mass terrorism plot in London this summer call for "a totally different set of rules."

In August, British authorities said they broke up a plot to set off improvised bombs on as many as 10 U.S.-bound airliners, which they said would have caused mass murder on an "unimaginable scale." The authorities used new antiterrorism laws that allow, among other things, detentions for up to four weeks without charges.

Gingrich also reaffirmed the Pledge of Allegiance, criticized attempts to ban its recitation and said the executive and legislative branches should watch over the courts.

In 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that the pledge was unconstitutional when recited in public schools because of the reference to God. The Supreme Court in 2004 reversed that decision on a technicality, but the case has been revived.

"We are the only society to say power comes from God to you personally and you loan part to the state," Gingrich said. "It doesn't begin with the lawyers , with the bureaucrats... If there is no creator, where do your rights comes from?"