BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. This week, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld all major provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, rejecting First Amendment objections to the new law brought by groups like the National Rifle Association and the American Civil Liberties Union. These groups and others combined efforts to challenge the major soft money provisions in the law, but also the restrictions on funding for campaign season advertising. Paul Taylor, chairman of the board of the Alliance for Better Campaigns joins me from Washington to explain how this may actually play out in the presidential campaign. Paul, welcome back to OTM.

PAUL TAYLOR: Good to be with you.

BOB GARFIELD: Now the Campaign Reform Act was passed last year, but we really haven't had an opportunity to see its effect so far. As the campaign season progresses, what will TV watchers notice that's different?

PAUL TAYLOR: I suspect almost nothing. There will be a deluge of political advertising starting early next year with the Democratic primaries, and then certainly as we go into the summer and fall. The pattern has been over the last 20 years or so more ads, more money spent on ads every single year, and that will continue. The way those ads are financed will be changed because of this law.

BOB GARFIELD:One thing we've noticed early on is the little coda to every commercial that shows the candidate himself, or at least we hear the candidate's voice, saying I endorse the contents of this ad. That's a new wrinkle. Part of the legislation?

PAUL TAYLOR: It was part of the legislation. It's known as the "stand by your ad" provision, and it's basically four seconds out of every 30 second spot has to have the candidate saying "I am Joe Smith, and I paid for this ad, cause I believe in a better America," or, or whatever Joe Smith wants to say in his four seconds. There used to be kind of a postage stamp size in very small type that told you who paid for the ad, and now it -- that disclosure requirement has been beefed up to four seconds per 30 second spot.

BOB GARFIELD:Well, now that a candidate has to put his own imprimatur -- or hers -- on an ad, do you suppose that may lead to fewer attack ads as the campaigns wind their way down towards election day?

PAUL TAYLOR: Well that was part of the hope of the sponsors of that provision. The notion is: if you're going to throw mud, first of all at least carry your own bucket. And it might have some restraining effect, and my sense is that would be to the good -- although I'm always one who has believed that campaigns are supposed to be contests of ideas, so a hard give and take is what ads ought to be about.

BOB GARFIELD:The reason that various advocates have spent political lifetimes working on campaign reform is to remove Big Money's influence from politics. Now that Small Money, in the aggregate, will be funding these campaigns, do you think that from your perspective that the American voter is going to get a squarer deal?

PAUL TAYLOR: I think so. I, I mean I don't -- I don't have any illusions; I, I very much admired the Supreme Court decision for lots of reasons --in part because I think the decision itself said we have no illusions we're driving money or even Big Money out of the process. A lot of this is simply re-directing it. But I think it's been re-directed in a thoughtful way. If you believe it's wrong for someone to be able to write -- a corporation, for example, that has lots of interests before the government, to be able to write a million dollar check to a political party to run a bunch of ads to elect folks who that corporation can then go to on, on a variety of legislative matters -- I think most, most Americans are uncomfortable with that level, that size of contribution. Well, now that corporation is going to have to figure out other ways to play the political money game that are more difficult, frankly, and reduce the ability to have a direct impact on legislation. So I think the country's a net winner here.

BOB GARFIELD:Okay, one more question. If it is true that Campaign Finance Reform was a response to a fundamental corruption in the process, how long do you think, on a scale from five minutes to never, it will be before the forces of corruption manage to get around this legislation and influence us via our TVs?

PAUL TAYLOR: Well, I think five minutes over-estimates how long it will take. [LAUGHTER] It's already happened. The, the next generation of loopholes was already in place, in effect, before this law ever went in place. But having said that, I don't mean to sound cynical or resigned. This law is an improvement. It changes the nature of the playing field. It will re-direct energies in ways that I think are useful. It will break the most direct link between Big Money and the potential for policy outcomes. But money finds a way. It's like tax law. It's like anything else. You reform it; the incentives to find new loopholes are constant. You come back five years later, ten years later -- you do it all over again, and it's a never-ending chase.

BOB GARFIELD: All right. Well Paul, as always, thanks very much.

PAUL TAYLOR: Good to be with you.

BOB GARFIELD: Paul Taylor is chairman of the Alliance for Better Campaigns.