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Campaign Finance Bills Pile Up, Votes Don't By Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 4 1997; Page A04 With the arrival today of President Clinton's "deadline" of July 4 for action on campaign finance reform, Congress has come up with 70 bills in search of a vote. Far from meeting Clinton's target date, Congress is no closer to consensus on how to revamp its laws governing campaign funding than it was six months ago when Clinton laid down the challenge in his State of the Union address. Except for a couple of little-noticed hearings, there has been no action: no votes or scheduled votes, even in committee. Clinton has provided only occasional nudges, and Republican leaders either have remained aloof or, in the case of some House leaders, intervened to torpedo efforts by freshman members to get something going. "If anything, the process has probably slipped backwards," said Larry J. Sabato, a University of Virginia political science professor. "There's been very little real leadership, no sustained effort by the president or leaders of Congress to achieve a consensus, even among their own party members." Instead, hardly a week goes by without lawmakers introducing new bills, including three last week. They run the gamut from narrowly focused proposals, such as prohibiting fund-raising on presidential or vice presidential property, to shoot-the-moon efforts to provide public funding for candidates who agree to spending limits and other restrictions. Rather than signaling progress, the plethora of bills has added to the confusion, although observers disagree over whether this is an encouraging or discouraging sign for the campaign reform movement. As Sabato sees it, the rush to introduce bills reflects a collective search for political cover enabling lawmakers to show concern over campaign abuses without having to live with the consequences of passing legislation. "It's a new wrinkle on the old technique of voting for something when you know nothing will pass," he said. "You can say, `I'm sponsoring a bill to solve the problem and tragically most of my colleagues are not as enlightened as I am.' " The American Enterprise Institute's Norman J. Ornstein, recently tapped by Clinton to help work out a plan for free broadcast time for candidates, sees a silver lining in the clouds. "The number of bills may be encouraging . . . it indicates there's a lot of churning going on," Ornstein said, noting that some of the sponsors appear sincere about trying to find common ground rather than just political salvation. "They've gone to a fair amount of trouble to try to figure out if there's some formula that will work," he said. So far, most of the attention has focused on bills introduced by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) and Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) and endorsed by Clinton and some outside advocacy groups. They would ban unregulated "soft money" raised from special interests by political parties, tighten restrictions on political action committees (PACs) and offer incentives such as free and reduced-cost television time to encourage compliance with voluntary spending limits, among other things. But the bills are so all-encompassing, hitting nearly every raw nerve -- and lucrative source of campaign cash for one party or both -- that they have drawn simultaneous fire from nearly every powerful quarter. As a result, the bills' sponsors are considering a more targeted approach that would concentrate on banning soft money, strengthening enforcement and tightening disclosure requirements. Some are also seeking constitutional ways to limit "issue" advertising that is really aimed at electing or defeating specific candidates. This kind of strategy was recently endorsed by former vice president Walter F. Mondale and former senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker (R-Kan.), who are spearheading White House efforts to pass campaign finance legislation. But downsizing does not necessarily make the job any easier, as House Republican freshmen discovered last week. After five months of work, a bipartisan freshman task force led by Reps. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) and Tom Allen (D-Maine) came up with a limited bill focusing on banning use of soft money by national parties and requiring more disclosure, only to have Republican leaders intervene to block a formal endorsement by GOP freshmen. The leaders included House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (Tex.) and the chairmen of the House and Senate Republican campaign committees, Rep. John Linder (Ga.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who is the principal foe of campaign finance legislation in the Senate. Sources said the GOP leaders objected to any crackdown on soft money that did not also include curbs on election-related spending by labor unions, which largely benefits Democratic candidates. Allen has signed up two-thirds of the Democratic freshmen, and Hutchinson intends to try to line up GOP freshmen member by member. "I think there would have been a huge opportunity for passage if both freshman classes had rallied behind it," Hutchinson said. "There's still a possibility but we have to have the cooperation of the leadership to get it to the floor for a vote." In the Senate, McCain has been pressing Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to allow him to bring up his bill, or key parts of it, shortly before or after Congress's month-long August recess, so far without success. McCain also has served notice that he will bring the proposal up as an amendment to other legislation if necessary, a last-resort tactic that often works. A key problem for McCain is that he has only two GOP co-sponsors, Sens. Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and Susan Collins (Maine). Another is that, while McCain and Feingold can count more than 50 votes in favor of their bill, they cannot yet nail down the 60 that would be needed to overcome a certain filibuster by McConnell. In the House, Shays and Meehan have cut their bill in two and are pushing for action in early September on the first piece, which includes a soft money ban along with disclosure and enforcement provisions. If a vote is not scheduled, Shays said, he may try to pick up a dozen or more reform-minded Republicans to form a majority with Democrats and use the rules to force a vote. "This is an all-out battle, and it won't be pretty," he said. Meanwhile, the bill's sponsors are looking to hearings on campaign funding abuses, which are scheduled to start Tuesday in the Senate, to build public pressure for action on legislation to clean up the system. Sabato is skeptical, noting that weeks of front-page disclosures failed to create a public clamor and doubting that anything more than "housekeeping" reforms might result. Ornstein sees more of an opportunity. "You could create enough of a climate of embarrassment that leaders decide it's better to do something rather than nothing," he said. © Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company Back to the top Go to Campaign Finance Report | Go to National Section