The presidential campaigns and political parties know it, the media know it and so do the viewers of the ads, which are indistinguishable from other presidential campaign ads being run.

As such, the "issue ads" are illegal, because, among other things, they are being financed with tens of millions of dollars of soft-money contributions that the law says cannot be used to influence a federal election. The "issue ad" campaigns now underway blatantly promote and feature Gore and Bush, are designed and controlled by the Gore and Bush presidential campaigns and are targeted to run in key battleground states. The political parties are merely conduits for the scheme and cover for the lie.

What's the significance of all of this? Well, for starters we are living this lie in the election for the most important office in the world's oldest democracy. The lie will result in some $100 million or more in huge corrupting contributions being illegally used by Gore and Bush in the 2000 presidential election. (Many millions more will be illegally used in the 2000 congressional races.)

The lie makes a mockery of the common-sense intelligence of voters and the honesty of the presidential race. And, to date, no one in authority is prepared to do anything about it.

How did it happen that this lie came to rest at the core of our national elections? Well, in good part we have President Clinton to thank. It was Clinton who, more than anyone else, developed and "perfected" the lie, and the legal fiction on which it is based.

Soft money had been a problem prior to 1995, but no presidential candidate had ever tried to use soft money to finance a TV ad campaign promoting his candidacy. That's not because politicians weren't clever enough to think of this, but because everyone understood it was illegal.

Then President Clinton and his staff invented a scam for the 1996 election: They would use the Democratic Party as a front for running a "second" presidential campaign. This $50 million second campaign would use soft money--funds that the law does not allow in a presidential campaign--to finance Clinton campaign ads that would be labeled Democratic Party "issue ads."

It didn't take long for the Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, to follow suit. Today, four years later, the "issue ads" lie is standard political practice in presidential and congressional races.

The lie is built on the legal fiction that under Supreme Court rulings, political party ads are not covered by federal campaign finance laws unless they contain such magic words as "vote for" or "vote against" a specific federal candidate. That's supposed to be true even if the party ads promote a specific federal candidate and even if the ads are coordinated with or controlled by the candidate.

But the reality is that neither the Supreme Court nor any other federal court has ever said anything of the kind regarding political party ads. When the Supreme Court established the "magic words" test in Buckley v. Valeo, it made explicit that it was for outside groups and non-candidates only and did not apply to communications by candidates or political parties. And in any case, the "magic words" test is not applicable when an ad campaign is conducted in coordination with a federal candidate, as a Washington federal district court confirmed last year.

The Justice Department, in its failure to pursue the 1996 Clinton soft-money ads, never found the ads to be legal. Instead, Attorney General Reno closed the case based on the Clinton campaign's reliance on its lawyers' advice, which she said was "sufficient to negate any criminal intent on their part."

The general counsel of the Federal Election Commission did find that the 1996 soft-money ads were illegal. The commission, however, by a 3 to 3 tie vote, refused to proceed with an enforcement action. Thus we are left today with enforcement authorities that refuse to act against these soft money ads and, at the same time, refuse to say they are legal. And the lie goes on.

The writer is president of Democracy 21, a public policy organization.

© 2000 The Washington Post Company