FOR MANY YEARS, CONSERVATIVES have hesitated to denounce the assaults on the First Amendment that go under the name of “campaignfinance reform.” At the same time, they have not offered the public an adequate alternative to the Left’s repeated attempts to limit political speech. Now they have their chance.

Rep. John Doolittle, Republican of California, has proposed legislation that would end all limits on political contributions and require swift electronic disclosure of all money raised by candidates for federal office. (Donations from foreign sources would remain illegal.) Doolittle would scrap the existing system of contribution limits, filing requirements, and obtuse distinctions between “soft money” and “hard money.” And the Federal Election Commission — instead of monitoring Byzantine rules that politicians routinely flout and meting out puny penalties years after the fact — would actually do something useful: supply voters with information about the flow of money to their representative and senators before they cast their votes.