This doesn't seem to bother most of those who favor campaign finance reform in its current incarnation. Indeed, some of them seem almost proud of the fact that they're flouting the First Amendment. Ask them about the constitutional questions raised by, say, the limits on the ability of advocacy groups to advertise just prior to an election, and they'll tell you deciding such questions is not their job, but the job of the courts.

That, of course, is what's known as a cop out.

At least Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) is more honest about the whole thing. He recently wrote a constituent that, while he intends to vote for the bill, he has no doubt that it will be struck down by the courts because of that pesky First Amendment. That's why he's introduced a constitutional amendment in recent congresses that would strip political speech of its constitutional protection. Do that, he says in his letter, and Congress will be able to "regulate campaign finance issues in the manner it deems fit."

The audacity of those words is mind numbing. One can only imagine what Congress would do if it could simply ignore the Constitution altogether.

Fritz Hollings, to his credit, has always been more outspokenly blunt than most of his colleagues. One suspects, however, that many of them share his disdain for the First Amendment but are simply more reticent about saying so.

Instead, they've apparently decided to legislate as if it simply doesn't exist. Even a cursory examination of the legislation they are about to pass suggests they aren't at all reticent about simply ignoring free speech guarantees when they find it convenient to do so.

The shameless hypocrisy in all this becomes clear when one listens to just how important it is that various portions of the act that may eventually fail to impress the courts not be allowed to endanger the whole scheme. The authors knew going in that some parts of the bill they were putting together simply won't make it through the courts, but included them anyway, either because they didn't care or because they wanted the votes of senators who may have predicated their support on their inclusion.

The problem is that they have had to argue their case out of both sides of their mouths. McCain, for example, has suggested at some times that the bill shouldn't be amended in any substantive way because it represents a carefully thought out reform regime made up of equally important and mutually dependent parts. This was his justification for including and defending the prohibition on advocacy group spending prior to federal elections. If you don't ban such spending, he argued in March, you will simply rechannel money and create a new "loophole" through which it will find its way into the system.

If he truly believed this, however, one would expect him to acknowledge that striking down this section could endanger the whole scheme. But he doesn't. In fact, he argues at other times that the Congress must include severability so that the courts won't threaten the whole plan if parts of it don't make the constitutional cut.

It is, of course, true that even without an explicit severability provision, the courts are loath to strike down a whole law simply because one small portion of it is flawed. During floor debate back in March, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) made this point, but in his remarks went on to admit there are situations where the general rule doesn't apply.

It is said that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich and I have little doubt that a few good cosponsors, some friends in the media and a politically correct and appealing label could get many in Congress to make the sandwich law. Still, McCain has argued that what he is asking his colleagues to vote for is not a ham sandwich, but a carefully thought out and constructed regime that must be passed intact and virtually without amendment. And that may be why the senator thinks he needs specific severability language in the bill.

The consequences of striking down parts of a flawed but integrated scheme are sitting in the Senate today. In the Buckley decision back in the '70s, the Supreme Court found that contribution limits were constitutional, but that spending limits were not and that it was constitutionally impossible to limit an individual's right to spend as much of his own money as he wants. The result has been a flock of rich, self-financed candidates who have beaten opponents running with one hand tied behind their backs.

Something worse could happen this time and if it does, we'll all have John McCain to thank.

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David Keene is chairman of the American Conservative Union and a Washington-based government affairs consultant.