Advantage, NRA: An obnoxious amendment to a valuable campaign finance bill

EVEN IN the arena of sausage-making, the assembling of the campaign finance bill has been especially unappetizing. The measure, which could be voted on in the House as early as this week, has been amended not to address policy concerns but at the behest of -- and because of the clout of -- the National Rifle Association. But the process is more odious than the result: The amendment barely changes the bill's effect, which remains important and positive.

As the price of not opposing the measure, which would have doomed it, the NRA won an exemption from the proposal's donor disclosure requirements. Most nonprofit groups that conduct more than $10,000 of campaign-related activities would have to disclose the identities of donors; the groups can set up separate political accounts so that only supporters contributing to the political advertising would be listed. The NRA amendment would exempt any group that (a) is at least 10 years old, (b) has 1 million annual dues-paying members, (c) has operations in all 50 states and (d) receives less than 15 percent of its funding from corporations or labor unions. Guess how many groups would qualify? The NRA and perhaps the Humane Society and the AARP. Smaller nonprofit groups would have to play by the new disclosure rules.

It's bad policy to treat reasonably similar groups so differently. Why exempt the NRA but require the Sierra Club or the NAACP to report their donors for campaign-related causes? There is no good answer except for the matter of political muscle. But it's also true that well-established, member-supported organizations are not likely to be conduits for the kind of secret special-interest funding, whether from corporations, labor unions or wealthy individuals, that the new disclosure rules are designed to root out.

The question facing House members is whether some disclosure of political spending -- a good deal more disclosure, in fact -- is better than none. We think it is. Under existing rules, those who want to spend money to influence campaigns without revealing their identities can operate through nonprofit organizations or trade associations. The House measure would require these groups to reveal their donors, just as so-called 527 organizations were called on to report contributors after they emerged as important, but shadowy, political players. For those who believe that disclosure is the best defense against corrupting the political process, this new reporting is crucial. Exempting the NRA is obnoxious, but the alternative is even worse.