Campaign spending bill clears House, heads for Senate

By Jim Abrams

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – On the morning after House passage of the most significant campaign spending bill in a generation, President Bush’s spokesman was noncommittal Thursday about whether he will sign the legislation.

“I think the president has made clear that he would like to sign something that will improve the system. He will have something declarative to say at the end of the process,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.

The House, in voting into the wee hours of Thursday morning, passed legislation to ban millions of unregulated dollars flowing into national party coffers.

“Soft money just received a death sentence,” Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., said shortly after the 2:30 a.m. vote that culminated a 16-hour debate.

Meehan and his co-sponsor, Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., succeeded in defeating a dozen attempts to kill their bill or sidetrack it with damaging amendments.

The measure, passed 240-189, now goes back to the Senate, which passed a nearly identical bill last April. Forty-one Republicans and one independent joined 198 Democrats in voting for the House bill, while 12 Democrats, 176 Republicans and one independent were opposed.

Senate backers, led by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., need 60 votes to stop a likely filibuster and win approval for sending the bill directly to Bush for his signature. The Senate vote last year was 59-41.

If the Senate does not accept the House version, a conference committee would be needed reconcile the differences – albeit minor ones – between the two measures.

Bush has stayed away from the congressional battle over campaign spending and, despite some reservations about the Shays-Meehan bill, is expected to sign the measure if it reaches his desk.

Fleischer would not say as much on Thursday.

“Many aspects of the bill improve the system. There’s some other things that don’t improve it to the degree the president would seek. But ultimately, the process is moving forward and the president is pleased,” Fleischer said.

Congress hasn’t changed campaign spending rules since the post-Watergate year of 1974 despite repeated efforts in the past decade to do something about the explosive growth of soft money in the political system. These unregulated donations that corporations, unions and individuals make to national parties, often in hundreds of thousands of dollars, grew from $86 million in the 1992 presidential election to $500 million in the 2000 election.

“Soft money is now being given in a shameful way,” said Rep. Zack Wamp, R-Tenn. “It has proliferated beyond measure in recent years and it is a real corrupting influence.”

Shays-Meehan would ban such donations to national parties, although it would allow soft money contributions to state and local parties, in amounts up to $10,000. None of that money could be used for political ads.

It also bans the use of soft money to finance “issue ads” – that in effect are often used to attack candidates – during the 60 days leading up to an election, or 30 days before a primary.

Republican foes said the bill would weaken the national parties and was unconstitutional. “This bill strips citizens of their political rights and unconstitutionally attempts to regulate political speech,” said Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, the House’s third-ranked Republican.

Affected groups said they were already planning court challenges. “We’ll be at the courthouse door if this misguided legislation becomes law,” said U.S. Chamber of Commerce political director Bill Miller.

“Ultimately I think this issue is going to be decided by nine men and women in black robes (at the Supreme Court),” said Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association.

Shays and Meehan note that the courts have repeatedly upheld legislation to regulate various aspects of campaign spending.

The Shays-Meehan bill emerged virtually intact after the defeat of two GOP-backed substitutes and nine amendments aimed at changing the bill enough to force a House-Senate conference, where supporters feared the measure would be stalled indefinitely.

Among the handful of amendments approved were some designed to bring the House bill in line with the Senate version, and one barring the use of leftover soft money for constructing party buildings, was approved.

The closest call on a so-called poison pill amendment that supports argued would kill the legislation came when lawmakers defeated, 219-209, a measure that would have exempted soft money advertising restrictions on matters pertaining to the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to bear arms.

The House approved two amendments bringing the bill in line with the previously passed Senate measure. One raised the limit on regulated, hard money donations individuals can make to candidates from the current $1,000 to $2,000 for House as well as Senate candidates. A “millionaire’s amendment” raised hard money contribution ceilings for candidates running against wealthy opponents spending their own money.

Shays and Meehan also changed language in the final version to answer Republican charges that the bill would allow the parties to use leftover soft money after the soft money ban becomes effective on Nov. 6 to pay off hard money debts.

The House voted 327-101 to remove a provision requiring television stations to give candidates the lowest possible rate for ads in the 60 days before an election.

The amendment’s sponsor, Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, said the provision “creates a new perk for candidates for federal office.” But Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., who won approval of the provision in the Senate, said that without the lower prices “challengers will never be able to mount effective campaigns in large metropolitan areas.”

The House debate came only after Shays-Meehan supporters resorted to a rare signature campaign to force House GOP leaders to bring the issue to the floor. They garnered the needed 218 signatures, half the House, against the background of the Enron scandal that highlighted the extent of corporate contributions to politicians.

The bill is H.R. 2356.