Campaign Reform Bill All but Killed for Year

WASHINGTON —  Citing the very legislative gridlock he helped create, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) killed a broad campaign finance reform proposal Thursday, virtually ensuring that Congress will not act this year to clean up a system awash in corporate and union money.

After the GOP-controlled Senate for the second year in a row shelved legislation designed to address an array of fund-raising excesses in the 1996 presidential campaigns, reformers pleaded with a quiescent public to demand that Congress take action.

But their opponents had no apologies.

“We had a fair discussion. It’s obvious we don’t have consensus here yet,” Lott said in an interview after tabling the McCain-Feingold bill. “We’ve got a lot of very important business to do--domestically and in foreign policy.”

Lott removed the proposal from the Senate agenda after two procedural votes Thursday morning failed to break the logjam. Without mentioning the controversy, he then called up the next item on the calendar: a popular, multibillion-dollar highway spending bill.

When asked later for a post-mortem, the loquacious Lott affected puzzlement and then replied with a broad smile: “Why would I want to say anything about [campaign finance reform] today? Surface transportation is the subject of the hour.”

The demise of campaign finance reform came even as backers of a ban on unregulated contributions mustered a majority in the 100-member body for the first time this week. In test votes, 51 senators voted for the bill, with one supporter, Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa, absent. Their drive failed, however, because they needed at least 60 votes to break a Republican filibuster against reform.

In the absence of change, the upcoming elections could produce the worst fund-raising abuses yet, warned Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), a reform advocate who chaired hearings on fund-raising irregularities in 1996.

“We don’t have a campaign finance system anymore,” he said. “The loopholes are bigger than the laws.”

Common Cause, a citizens’ lobbying group, denounced the Senate’s inaction as “a classic illustration of inside-the-Beltway corrupt self-interest.”

Becky Cain, president of the League of Women Voters, decried the “obstructionist tactics and parliamentary games” that she said had thwarted the will of a Senate majority. “We condemn these undemocratic tactics on this good government reform.”

Senate Democrats, all 45 of whom co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold bill, talked of keeping the issue alive by offering the proposal as an amendment to unrelated legislation--as a form of protest, if nothing else. It was that tactic last year that produced the gridlock that forced Lott to agree to revisit the issue this year.

This time, however, the Democrats’ threat sounded halfhearted, at best. For one thing, they may want to save such legislative guerrilla tactics for something that is dearer to them, a cause that stands a better chance of enactment: raising the minimum wage.

Reform sponsors John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) talked openly of perhaps prevailing next year--if, they said, new, pro-reform senators are elected in November.

Even then, McCain said, the chances of success may hinge on “the American people voicing their displeasure and outrage” over the current system. “We’ve got to see the mood of the American people.”

In defeat, the long view taken by McCain and Feingold underscored a Washington reality that is often underappreciated: This is utterly a city of process--filled with die-hard believers who spend years, even decades, on an issue before getting it enacted, if at all.

Indeed, almost immediately after Lott withdrew the McCain-Feingold bill, a new campaign reform proposal surfaced. Introduced by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the bill provides reduced advertising rates for congressional candidates who agree that they will not begin their campaigns until one month before a primary and 60 days before a general election.

Meanwhile, in the House, Democrats and Republicans alike are girding for a similar battle, scheduled for next month. An aide to Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) confirmed that House Republicans are likely to produce their own version of the “paycheck protection act,” which would restrict the use of union dues for political purposes.

It was precisely such a proposal, offered by Lott, that produced the Senate stalemate, with each side unable to muster the necessary 60 votes to end dueling filibusters. Pro-labor Democrats denounced Lott’s bill as an unacceptable “poison pill” designed to derail the reform effort.

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) called the Senate move Thursday “very bad news” and said that the death of McCain-Feingold again shows “who’s really for campaign finance reform and who’s not.”

In the Senate, the McCain-Feingold bill had three GOP co-sponsors: Thompson, Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. In addition, GOP Sens. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, James M. Jeffords of Vermont and John H. Chafee of Rhode Island support the measure.

Its centerpiece is a ban on “soft money,” or unrestricted donations to political parties that are intended for party-building activities but often are channeled to individual campaigns. Unions and corporations alone spent about $150 million in such funds for independent ads to support or attack candidates in 1996. “Soft money” also is at the center of congressional investigations into irregularities during the 1996 presidential campaign.

The McCain-Feingold bill also requires greater disclosure of fund-raising activities and funding sources for campaign ads.

A Snowe-Jeffords amendment, accepted by Lott, would restrict the ability of corporations and unions to use their funds for political ads.

But the Senate’s GOP majority opposed any restrictions on fund-raising, asserting that limits would amount to an unconstitutional infringement of the right to free speech.

Moments after Lott withdrew the McCain-Feingold bill, Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho, who chairs the Senate GOP policy committee, hailed the move as “a phenomenally significant vote for the country and for . . . God-fearing, constitutional Americans.”

But Collins vowed that she never would give up, calling campaign finance reform “an idea that will not die.”

Although public opinion polls consistently reflect little concern about campaign finance reform, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) predicted in an interview that the issue eventually will “resonate” with the public, particularly as campaigns become “demolition derbies.”

Snowe called opponents of reform “doorkeepers of the status quo” who favor “secrecy, stealth advocacy, a lack of accountability and a lack of disclosure.” But she added: “They are sadly mistaken if they think the American people don’t care about this issue.”

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Filibusters 2, Campaign Reform 0

Campaign finance reform fell to another filibuster Thursday. Last fall, a filibuster also stopped the legislation. Here’s how filibusters work:

The rule: Under Senate rules, any senator can talk as long as he or she wants, unless 60 senators vote to stop it by putting a time limit on debate. The House does not have filibusters.

How a filibuster is used: When senators object to legislation but don’t have the votes to defeat it, they can hold the floor indefinitely, preventing a vote.

Strategy: The tactic is especially effective at the end of a session when the Senate is eager to adjourn but wants to vote on a measure before it quits. The talkative minority can force the majority to accept a compromise or give up altogether.

Source: Times files