Washington ? The reason that backers of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill are likely to be disappointed in its results can be found right at the start of the majority opinion last week upholding the law. Quoting the 1896 words of that icon of the Progressive era, Elihu Root, Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O’Connor, the authors of the 5-4 majority opinion, said the new law is designed “to purge national politics of what was conceived to be the pernicious influence of ‘big money’ campaign contributions.”

As the Brookings Institution’s Thomas E. Mann, a supporter of McCain-Feingold, said at a Brookings’ forum on the court decision, “ordinary citizens think we’ll just solve all this (special interest influence) by getting money out.” Many legislators advocating for McCain-Feingold suggested that there should be less money in politics and claimed the law would do that. But Mann, who worked closely with Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold, knows better. The sponsors, he said, “were not intending to reduce the amount of money in politics. Politics costs a lot of money.”

That is the reality, and the practical effect of McCain-Feingold is likely to be, as Mann says, to “rearrange the flows” of money, not to reduce it. You can see that effect already, because parties and candidates have been operating under the terms of McCain-Feingold for the past 13 months while the legal challenge was being heard.

In this new “golden era,” President Bush is on his way to breaking the all-time record by raising almost $200 million for his preconvention campaign, while two Democrats for the first time have rejected the public-financing system which limits spending for the nomination. Meantime, millionaires such as George Soros and major interest groups are pouring money into supposedly independent political organizations, which will replace party “soft money” spending on voter registration and turnout programs.

The question, then, is whether the limited purifying effects are worth the restrictions on political activity embodied in the act, or whether Justice Antonin Scalia is right in contending that “the juice is not worth the squeeze.”

Unlike Scalia and the other dissenters, I think the court got it exactly right in upholding the ban on the unlimited, frequently six-figure “soft money” contributions to the parties from business, labor and wealthy individuals. Corporations and unions have been barred from contributing to federal candidates for decades and the courts have long sustained the constitutionality of limits on the size of individual contributions. The “soft money” loophole was created by administrative action and was then ruthlessly exploited by both political parties. Shutting it down was an overdue step.

Far more troubling are the law’s restrictions on broadcast advertising about federal candidates in the period leading up to a primary or general election. Such ads — “Tell Senator Jones he’s wrong on this issue” — are indistinguishable in effect or intent from ads saying, “Vote against Senator Jones,” the court ruled. So it upheld the new restrictions saying that groups of any sort that buy them must adhere to the same limits on contributions and disclosure requirements as parties and candidates.

Such independent ads are a pain to the candidates — a wild card in their election campaigns. But I must agree with Scalia that the restrictions Congress has placed on them are a boon to incumbents and a limitation on core First Amendment rights of speech and association. If I join the National Rifle Assn. or the Friends of the Earth and find that they cannot use my dues to say in a TV spot that Representative Smith has been voting against our interests, but first must solicit me for a PAC contribution, my rights have been restricted.

Journalists and others who depend on the First Amendment have reason to question the cost of this reform victory.

• Paul Simon, the former senator from Illinois who died last week, was a notable gift from journalism to the political world. As a small-town editor/publisher in southern Illinois, he fought corruption, and he continued that fight in the Illinois Legislature and in his work as a progressive senator. Fiercely independent, but gentle in manner, Simon was living proof that good character is the best guarantee of integrity in office. He taught by example, and his books will carry that message to future generations.

David Broder is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.