[1453] in peace2
A washingtonpost.com article from mrios@mit.edu
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Thu Feb 14 05:51:13 2002
From: register@washingtonpost.com
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 05:50:35 -0500 (EST)
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awesome. campaign finance passes the house.
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8268-2002Feb14.html
House Passes Campaign Finance Bill
By Juliet Eilperin and Helen Dewar
The House early today approved long-stalled legislation aimed at squeezing special interest money out of politics, marking a critical step toward enactment of the most far-reaching overhaul of campaign finance laws in a quarter-century.
The bill, which would curb unlimited "soft money" contributions and restrict electioneering ads by outside groups, now goes to the Senate, which passed a somewhat different version of the legislation last year.
In what could be the final struggle over the measure, the Senate will have to decide whether to approve the House version as is or send the issue to a House-Senate conference, where foes could mount another effort to scuttle it.
The House vote was 240 to 189, with 41 Republicans joining all but 12 Democrats in supporting the bill.
House approval of the legislation came after its proponents beat back two rival bills and a series of amendments pushed by opponents of campaign finance overhaul, which could have shattered the coalition supporting it and endangered its approval.
These votes reflected fallout from the Enron scandal, a generally hands-off approach by President Bush and the fact that the House twice before – in 1998 and 1999 – approved similar legislation by wide margins.
But some of the votes were close, and the marathon debate prompted impassioned arguments over an array of contentious issues, including proposals to bar non-citizens from making campaign contributions and exempting ads in favor of gun rights from being restricted. All but a few relatively non-controversial of them failed.
Mixed signals throughout the day from the White House created some uncertainty about the bill's eventual fate. Bush's spokesman criticized a last-minute change in the bill, which some Republicans characterized as a Democratic maneuver designed to help pay off party debts from this fall's campaign.
"The president believes that this should be removed," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Sponsors of the bill inserted language just before final passage restricting the use of soft money to pay off campaign debts to assure lawmakers they were not creating a new loophole.
The bill, sponsored by Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), would ban the hundreds of millions of dollars of unlimited, unregulated contributions – known as soft money – that corporations, unions and wealthy individuals have been giving to national political parties in recent years. Donations to state parties would be limited and could not be used to promote federal candidates.
Soft money, given ostensibly for "party-building" activities, is more often used to promote candidates without expressly advocating their election – or to attack candidates without expressly advocating their defeat. The practice sidesteps restrictions that apply to "hard money" contributions, which go directly to candidates and can be used for many purposes. The two parties spent nearly $500 million in soft money for the 2000 elections.
Another provision, aimed at curbing thinly veiled attack ads by outside groups, would ban corporations, unions and advocacy groups from targeting candidates by name in "issue ads" within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary.
Under an amendment approved last night, 218-211, the bill would also raise the limit on individual contributions to candidates from $1,000 to $2,000, bringing the bill in line with the new hard-money limits approved earlier by the Senate. It also would ban donations from foreign sources, prohibit solicitation of money on federal property, and require fuller disclosure of fundraising and expenses for media advertising.
Shays-Meehan supporters contend the current election finance system invites undue influence by monied interests that seek to shape legislation by giving cash to those politicians who draft laws. But opponents said the proposed bill would curb political and free-speech rights without effectively driving corruption out of politics.
"At issue is the shape of our democracy," said Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), a backer of the bill.
"This bill does not contain real reform," said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), who opposes it.
Hour after hour Wednesday, House GOP leaders – who believe their party has fared well under current campaign finance laws – proposed bills or amendments designed to make the Shays-Meehan bill unpalatable in one way or another. In some cases, they offered to outdo the reformists, proposing extreme restrictions that few politicians would swallow.
For example, Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) sponsored a bill to immediately ban all forms of soft money, even funds used by state parties for registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, which were not targeted by Shays-Meehan. It failed, 249-179.
Then the House rejected, 377-53, an earlier and broader version of Shays-Meehan, offered by Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio). Some opponents of Shays-Meehan had hoped Ney's bill would siphon critical support from the primary bill.
House members then voted 240-191 to give tentative approval to Shays-Meehan as the vehicle for consideration of a dozen proposed amendments – some of which threatened to shatter the fragile consensus of support for the legislation in both houses.
In a close vote on an amendment regarded as a poison pill, the House rejected, 219-209, a proposal backed by the National Rifle Association. It would have exempted communications about gun rights from the bill's restrictions on issue advertising.
In a critical vote, the House rejected a proposal to make the soft-money restrictions take effect immediately, rather than after the November elections, and require parties to return all soft money they have already collected. Foes of the proposal argued it was too late to put new financing rules in place for campaigns that are already underway and described it as a thinly-veiled effort to kill the bill.
Some Republican supporters of Shays-Meehan, fearing the bill would allow soft money to be used to pay off party debts, threatened to vote for the date-change proposal until key sponsors assured them that language would be included to prevent such action.
A highly controversial proposal to bar legal residents who are not citizens from contributing to candidates failed by a large margin, 268-160.
House members also rejected proposals to exempt restrictions on advertising dealing with civil rights and military veterans. Like several other proposed amendments, these were designed to help Republicans in this fall's elections by putting Democrats on the spot on sensitive issues.
The House approved, 327-101, a proposal to drop a Senate-passed provision aimed at ensuring candidates deep discounts on broadcasting rates during campaigns. Broadcasters strongly opposed the Senate version, and the issue was not considered a potential deal-breaker for senators.
The House approved by voice vote a Senate proposal to raise contribution limits for candidates facing wealthy opponents who spend heavily on their own campaigns.
It rejected an effort to bar state and local parties from spending soft money on voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts that do not mention federal candidates, which the bill's sponsors had described as a deal-breaker.
The furor over whether Shays-Meehan would allow parties to use soft money to pay their campaign debts arose after Republicans seized on a change made overnight by the bill's sponsors. They said the provision would essentially allow Democrats to convert soft money into precious hard money for this fall's congressional elections.
Under the contested provision, parties could spend soft money until Jan. 1 to "retire outstanding debts" from November's election. Those debts could involve millions of dollars used for hard-money expenditures, which generally must be repaid with hard money. If a party could repay such loans instead with soft money – which is much easier to raise – it would amount to converting soft money into more valuable hard money.
House Democrats have nearly twice as much soft money in their campaign coffers as hard money. By contrast, House Republicans have twice as much hard money as soft money on hand.
Some Republican supporters of Shays-Meehan, fearing the bill would allow soft money to be used to pay off party debts, threatened to vote for the date-change proposal until key sponsors assured them that language would be included to prevent such action.
By mid-afternoon, the White House, upset by the issue, expressed stronger reservations about the bill than it had a few hours earlier.
"The president views this as an unfair, unwise and unwarranted change that makes something that is currently illegal and tries to turn it into something that is legal," spokesman Fleischer said. He did not say whether the provision would prompt Bush to veto the bill.
Earlier in the day, Bush was noncommittal about the legislation, saying that if a bill passes the House, "I would look at it very carefully." He said any change in campaign finance laws should take effect immediately.
"I want to sign a bill that improves the system. We'll see what comes my way. . . . If it improves the system, let's have it in effect this year," Bush said, taking issue with the sponsors' decision to put off the effective date until after the November elections.
Still earlier in the day, Fleischer had suggested that Bush deserves credit for any bill that passes. "If campaign finance reform is enacted into law, I believe that you can thank President George W. Bush, because he changed the dynamic of how this phony debate has finally ended in Washington, D.C.," Fleischer said.
The debt-repayment controversy threatened to complicate efforts by the bill's backers to push the bill swiftly through the Senate as well as the House. Backers hope to avoid a House-Senate conference, which could give opponents another chance to derail the measure. The two houses must approve legislation in exactly the same form before it can go to the president.
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who chairs the House GOP's campaign arm, called the provision "outrageous. You're using soft dollars to pay off hard money debt."
Democrats obtained a letter from Larry Noble, former general counsel to the Federal Election Commission, saying the bill would not change current law, which prohibits parties from repaying hard-money loans with soft money. "This is an attempt to create a misrepresentation to defeat the bill," Meehan said.
Even if the House approves the Shays-Meehan bill in a form similar to the Senate's McCain-Feingold legislation, it faces another big hurdle. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a staunch foe of the legislation, plans to invoke filibuster rules that would require a 60-vote majority to pass the measure without going to a House-Senate conference to iron out any differences.
