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The Republican National Committee has filed lawsuits challenging "the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's ban on national parties raising and spending non-federal dollars, and the constitutionality of political party coordinated expenditure limits."

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act is better known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, and the lawsuit is effectively an effort to overturn it.

The effort, the Washington Times argues, amounts to "a slap in the face" to 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, whose advocacy for the bill angered many conservatives.

The suits seek to overturn the ban on the generally unregulated contributions known as "soft money," a key componant of the McCain-Feingold legislation, and to get rid of limits on coordinated spending between political parties and candidates.

The Republican National Committee has filed lawsuits challenging "the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's ban on national parties raising and spending non-federal dollars, and the constitutionality of political party coordinated expenditure limits."

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act is better known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, and the lawsuit is effectively an effort to overturn it.

The effort, the Washington Times argues, amounts to "a slap in the face" to 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, whose advocacy for the bill angered many conservatives.

The suits seek to overturn the ban on the generally unregulated contributions known as "soft money," a key componant of the McCain-Feingold legislation, and to get rid of limits on coordinated spending between political parties and candidates.

Earlier today, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney responded to reports that "push polls" – phone calls that first seem like legitimate polls but are intended to raise questions about a candidate – had been used to draw attention to his Mormon faith, among other issues.

“I think the attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American,” Romney said. He went on to suggest that it was legislation tied to one of his rivals, John McCain, that was partly responsible for what took place.

“I’m very disappointed in the political process that someone is pursuing to use this kind of underhanded, un-American technique to try and influence a political campaign and I anticipate there will be those that ask how in the world can this happen, how is it we don’t know who’s doing it?" Romney said. "And in that regard, you have to look back at the legislation that’s known as McCain-Feingold.”

When asked about McCain launching an investigation into the push polling, Romney said “it’s kind of ironic that Senator McCain is filing that request for an investigation."

He added: "Senator McCain is the father of McCain-Feingold and it’s McCain-Feingold that opens the pathway for this very kind of political technique. McCain-Feingold is the monster that we’re having to deal with here.”

The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, which passed in 2002, was designed to stem the flow of unfettered soft-money donations to parties and keep issue ads from corporations and unions from airing close to an election. In the five years since, it has become a target of conservatives, who complain that it hampers free speech.

But is Romney's tying of the push poll controversy to McCain-Feingold fair? For an answer, we turned to Anthony Corrado, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and an expert on campaign finance, who is a proponant of McCain-Feingold.

"It's not a fair characterization at all," Corrado said. "Push polling was taking place before McCain-Feingold. It was a problem in the 2000 Republican primaries, and was used in elections prior to 2000." He said it is "not a new technique, and certainly is not a technique something one can link to McCain-Feingold."

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