Boomerang! Republicans should not try to beat Democrats at their own campaign-finance game.

FOUR months ago, in the case of McConnell v. FEC, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill, now known as BCRA. It has already become cliche to pronounce this a "new era" in the regulation of politics, and--like many cliches--this one contains a kernel of truth; but the new era has more to do with Republicans' abandonment of their deregulatory principles than with the speech regulations the Court endorsed.

BCRA abolished "soft money" contributions to national party committees, placed numerous restrictions on fundraising by federal officeholders and candidates, and restricted broadcast advertisements mentioning a federal candidate and run with corporate or labor-union funds within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. Most scholars were startled by the ease with which the Court declared these provisions constitutional. The decision proclaimed a new tolerance for the regulation of political activity, and a broad deference to Congress's judgment when it comes to the specifics. The Court seemed to see little danger that incumbents might have interests in regulating politics that are not shared by challengers, by others active in politics, or by society in general; and it seemed likewise to have little concern about the rights of the vast majority of political donors, who seek only to support candidates with whom they agree.

As dissenters in McConnell observed, political speech is now less constitutionally protected than "virtual" child pornography, cross burning, flag burning, tobacco advertising, sexually explicit cable-TV programs, nude dancing, and defamation. All this is new and troubling; but the more troubling change is in the debate itself.

The argument about campaign regulation used to be a spirited battle. On one side were so-called reformers--maybe better called utopians--who believed in the ability of the government to enact and enforce regulations that would cleanse politics of special-interest influence. They saw self-interested political activity as an impediment to good government; policymaking, in their view, should be an exercise in cold analysis and pure judgment of merits, removed from passion and electoral whim. For them, the right answer to any question would be obvious, and irresistible, were it not for all these "special interests." Thwart the political activity of these special interests, and progress would be inevitable.

On the other side of the debate were advocates of a pure laissez-faire approach, joined by those who saw problems in unfettered campaign activity but lamented the loss of political liberty inherent in campaign regulations. Implicit in the skepticism about regulating politics was a deeper point, which is that in any policy dispute there may be no objectively "right" choice, or such a "right" answer may not be obvious, even to experts. The give-and-take of ordinary politics may be the most legitimate way to come to a decision; the search for the "right" answer will be furthered by political debate and competition.

Before the McConnell decision, individuals and organizations that favored free markets, deregulation, and limited government (generally speaking, Republicans) could usually be counted on to advocate limited campaign-finance restrictions; and those that favored a big-government Leviathan (generally speaking, Democrats) could similarly be counted on to align with the utopians favoring more invasive restrictions.

Today, however, it seems that BCRA and the McConnell decision have knocked the wind from the sails of the deregulators. Those who favored free political discourse have suffered a serious loss of confidence. Many Republicans seem to have decided that the cause of free political speech no longer has independent value: They are trying to make aggressive use of the McConnell opinion to obtain short-term political gain. They claim that the broad scope of McConnell requires campaign regulators to prosecute groups that engage in political activity but had not before been considered federal political committees: the so-called "527" organizations, that is, groups exempted under Section 527 of the tax code that engage in political activity.

It has been widely reported that prominent Democrats are planning to use these 527 groups to pump tens, and perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars into the 2004 campaign. In response, many Republicans have demanded that the FEC aggressively regulate these groups--even though the rise of 527s is exactly what Senator McConnell and other Republican opponents of McCain-Feingold had said would happen: If you ban soft money, soft money will simply change its address. This was a predictable result of the law that Congress passed.

Undeniably, there is superficial appeal to silencing the 527s. In a campaign, "any stick will do" to beat your opponent; and certainly there is some satisfaction in seeing those who used to support campaign-finance "reform" hoist on their own petard. But Christopher Hitchens likes to quote Chesterton's aphorism that when a man believes any stick will do, he tends to pick up a boomerang; and if broad restrictions are adopted, they will doubtless come back to smack the Republican party in the head. Republicans should be confident that their party has the right ideas, and that when it presents its platform clearly it wins. They should carry that big stick, not drop it to reach for the boomerang.

But whatever the political wisdom of this GOP strategy, we regulators should be skeptical of the legal basis for the pro-regulation argument in this case. In its landmark 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, the Supreme Court upheld some amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act. That act had limited all expenditures "for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office"; concerned about both vagueness and overbreadth in this provision, the Court--in order to preserve the constitutionality of the statute--interpreted this key phrase to apply only to what became known as "express advocacy," or explicit messages of support for or opposition to a candidate (such as "Vote for Clinton," "Stop Bush," or even "Lamar!"). Groups spending more than $1,000 on such messages are required to register and report to the FEC, and may take only contributions of $5,000 or less from individuals or other PACs.

BCRA was designed to expand regulation while staying within the Buckley framework. The legislation built on the express-advocacy concept, but did not change the definition of "contribution," "expenditure," or "political committee." Nothing in the Supreme Court decision changes this: The Court did not increase the scope of the statute beyond what Congress passed and the president signed. The Court's opinion does strongly suggest that Congress could broaden the definition of "expenditure" to cover independent groups; but Congress did not do that.

Nevertheless, in a draft rulemaking currently before the public for comment, the FEC asks whether it should apply the law this way. But in McConnell, the Supreme Court majority wrote: "Interest groups, however, remain free to raise soft money to fund voter registration, GOTV [get-out-the-vote] activities, mailings, and broadcast advertising (other than electioneering communications)."

The Commission's obligation is to enforce the law. It is not to enforce the law as some wish Congress had written it, or as some members of Congress now wish that they had written it, or now claim to have written it, or as seems to serve the interests of a particular campaign.

If the FEC adopts a broad rule regulating interest groups, including 527s, that decision will significantly expand the regulatory regime, and capture liberal and conservative groups alike. When it comes to campaign finance, Republicans should go back to their deregulatory roots. Republicans thrive when the intellectual climate supports greater freedom and smaller government. Campaign-finance reform passed Congress, and was upheld by the Supreme Court, because groups hostile to freedom spent hundreds of millions of dollars to create an intellectual climate in which free political participation was viewed as a threat to democracy. To even hope to restore these lost freedoms, the case must be made that political speech is good and proper--even when remarkably unfair in its allegations, even when funded by George Soros. The party of political liberty and limited government should not contribute to an anti-freedom, pro-big-government intellectual environment for some uncertain political gain.

Twenty-five years ago, Ronald Reagan wrote to a campaign supporter as follows: "Maybe one day some sanity will return to government, and some of the more repressive campaign laws will be repealed. Experiencing them from the inside as a candidate, I can assure you they are not helpful to the democratic process--namely in allowing the candidates to get their message to the greatest number of people."

That--and not an aggressive and statutorily questionable expansion of the regulatory regime--is the Reagan legacy.

Mr. Smith is chairman of the Federal Election Commission, and Mrs. Hayward is counsel to the chairman. The views expressed are those of the authors, and not of the Federal Election Commission.