Van Hollen and White House optimistic about controversial campaign finance bill

A top House Democrat said Monday that he remains hopeful of mustering enough votes to pass sweeping new campaign finance legislation, which has prompted a political uproar over a deal crafted to help the National Rifle Association.

The White House, which has made campaign finance reform one of its top legislative priorities this year, also weighed in Monday with a strong endorsement of the revised bill, despite changes that have angered many liberal and progressive groups.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is spearheading the legislation in the House, said that Democrats are "in striking distance of getting the votes" for the package, which would require corporations, nonprofit groups and unions to disclose details about their political spending.

"I remain optimistic," said Van Hollen, who also heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I think a good majority understands that it's important to give voters information on who is paying for the ads that they're watching."

The White House also offered its support in a policy statement: "This bill is not perfect. The Administration would have preferred no exemptions. But by providing for unprecedented transparency, this bill takes great strides to hold corporations who participate in the Nation's elections accountable to the American people."

The push comes after a week of worsening developments for the bill, known as the Disclose Act, which was scrubbed from the House vote schedule last week after liberal outrage over the NRA deal.

In general, the legislation would require corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to disclose their top five donors if they participate in political activity and to agree to other disclosures in connection with expenditures prior to elections. The bill and a similar measure in the Senate are aimed at countering the Supreme Court's Citizens United vs. FEC ruling, which unleashed unlimited spending by corporations for or against political candidates.

But the NRA had signaled in May that it would muster its 4 million members and other lobbying resources against the legislation unless it was exempted from donor disclosure requirements contained in the bill. Fearing doom if the NRA was mobilized against the bill, Van Hollen announced a compromise last week exempting long-standing groups if they had more than 1 million members and received less than 15 percent of their funding from corporations -- a set of requirements seemingly tailored for the NRA.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups have opposed the Disclose Act from the beginning, but last week's deal-making also alienated groups on the left, ranging from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence to the Sierra Club. Many centrist "Blue Dog" Democrats, whose pro-gun views initially prompted the need for an NRA compromise, also raised new objections based on the opposition from business groups.

Van Hollen expanded the exemption to groups with memberships over 500,000 but still was unable to draw enough support for a planned House vote Friday. He acknowledged in Monday's interview that the deal benefiting the NRA and other large-membership groups was not ideal but said it was the only way to give the legislation a chance.

"While we would have preferred to move on the bill as is, it would be a big mistake to lose sight of the overall benefits to transparency that are still there," Van Hollen said.

Republicans have been nearly unanimous in their opposition to the legislation, arguing that it attempts to intimidate corporations by requiring them to disclose major donors and identify themselves in support of political advertising that they help pay for.

Most of the opposition to the NRA deal focused on its exemption as a large-membership group, but another facet of the compromise has gone largely unnoticed: Contractors receiving $10 million or more annually from the federal government would be barred from making political expenditures, a figure that had been set at $7 million. Legislative aides said Monday that the NRA could have been eligible under the lower amount because of firearms training that it conducts for soldiers and federal peace officers.

"The NRA provides critical firearms training for our Armed Forces and law enforcement throughout the country," the NRA said in a statement explaining its opposition to the original legislation. "This bill would force us to choose between training our men and women in uniform and exercising our right to free political speech. We refuse to let this Congress force us to make that choice."

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) said in a statement Monday that the contractor change "appears to be yet another backroom deal by Democrats in an attempt to salvage this partisan legislation already defective beyond the possibility of repair. They're auctioning off the First Amendment with zero regard to the dire consequences of their actions."

But Van Hollen said many groups and companies were concerned by the threshold amount for contractors, which was originally set at $50,000 before being raised to $7 million and now to $10 million.

"That number has been moving around," he said. "Those adjustments have been made as people have gotten input more generally."