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Campaign reform heads to Senate
President Bush suggested Wednesday that he may sign a campaign finance reform
bill if it gets to his desk. NBC's David Gregory reports on the fierce debate
in the House over the Shays-Meehan bill.
By Tom Curry
MSNBC
Feb. 14 — Hours after the House passed a bill to overhaul the way
political campaigns are financed, Senate supporters of the measure appeared
to have enough votes Thursday to block a threatened filibuster and send the
measure to President Bush for his signature or veto.
SEN. FRITZ Hollings, D-S.C., who voted against a similar Senate bill
last year, said he would supply the 60th vote needed to cut off Senate debate
on the Shays-Meehan bill.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said as soon as the bill reaches
the Senate, which could be after a one-week recess next week, he would seek
unanimous consent to bring up the measure and pass it.
Bush has not said if he will sign or veto the measure.
Sponsored by Reps. Chris Shays, R-Conn., and Marty Meehan, D-Mass, the
legislation would outlaw “soft money” contributions to national political
parties and ban certain types of political advertising 60 days prior to an
election.
WashPost: Tactics, theatrics color vote
The House passed the measure early Thursday after hours of debate and
voting on 13 amendments. Despite the ban on “soft money” donations to
national political parties, it would permit soft money contributions — up to
$10,000 per donor per year — to any state or local party.
Last April, the Senate approved its own version of campaign finance
legislation, which is similar to the Shays-Meehan bill.
But the Senate margin then was one less than the 60 votes needed to
stop a filibuster, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pledged to filibuster the
Shays-Meehan bill, essentially talking it to death.
But Hollings’ Thursday morning announcement that he’d block a
filibuster appears to pave the way for quick Senate approval of Shays-Meehan.
Clift: Congress votes for real reform
This would confront Bush with a hard decision — sign a bill most of
whose provisions he opposes, or veto the bill and incur the wrath of
supporters of tighter restriction on campaign spending.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was noncommittal about whether
Bush would sign the legislation: “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.”
VETO CONSEQUENCES
If Bush did veto the bill, it might give impetus to his rival, Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz., to launch an independent presidential candidacy and
jeopardize Bush’s chances of re-election in 2004.
Last March, Bush issued a set of principles that he said he wanted to
see embodied in any campaign legislation. They include:
Banning corporate and labor union “soft money,” but not individuals’ “soft
money” donations.
Requiring labor unions to obtain prior authorization from dues-paying
members before spending their money on political campaigns.
Maintaining the right of advocacy groups to broadcast “issue” ads that
mention a particular candidate.
Non-severability, which means that if the courts struck down any portion of
the bill, the entire measure would be invalid.
If Bush sticks to these principles, then he’d find the Shays-Meehan
bill unacceptable.
In the final tally on the Shays-Meehan bill, 198 Democrats and 41
Republicans voted for it, while 176 Republicans and 12 Democrats voted
against it.
The House’s two independent members split on the bill. Six members
didn’t vote.
House roll call vote on campaign finance
The bill’s foes tried offering amendments Wednesday night and into
Thursday morning that, if adopted, would have made it unacceptable to the
Shays-Meehan forces and difficult for the Senate to accept. But most of those
amendments were rejected before final approval of the measure shortly before
3 a.m. ET.
BUSH: WHY NOT NOW?
Bush signaled his opposition Wednesday to a provision that would delay
implementation of the bill until after this November’s elections, allowing
both parties to continue to use unlimited “soft money” contributions from
labor unions, corporations and individuals.
Alterman: Is this reform?
“I want to sign a bill that improves the system, and it seems like, to
me, that if they get a bill out of the House of Representatives that improves
the system it ought to be in effect immediately,” Bush told reporters at the
White House. “But we’ll see what comes my way.”
'Hard money' vs. 'soft money'
Defining two kinds of campaign contributions:
'Hard money': Donation to a specific candidate, limited to $1,000 per
election by individual donors or $5,000 per election by a political action
committee (PAC).
'Soft money': Donations to political parties ostensibly used for
party-building and get-out-the-vote efforts, but often used to help specific
candidates. There is no limit on 'soft money' donations, but they must be
reported to the Federal Election Commission.
DEBATE OVER AMENDMENTS
The Shays-Meehan measure would also would ban advocacy groups such as
the Sierra Club or the National Rifle Association from broadcasting any ads
within 60 days of a general election if the ads mentioned the name of a
candidate or showed a photo or likeness of a candidate.
The ads that are the focus of the dispute discuss an issue such as
pollution, but also mention a candidate. Instead of explicitly saying “vote
against Bill Kelly,” the ads use language such as “Call Sen. Kelly and ask
him why he voted to weaken the Clean Water Act.”
Critics of the Shays-Meehan bill say the 60-day ad blackout period
would violate the First Amendment rights of advocacy groups by making it
impossible for them to get their message to voters.
A guide to the campaign finance debate
Even supporters of the Shays-Meehan bill, such as Sen. John Edwards,
D- N.C., have said that its advertising ban poses “a very serious
constitutional problem” on First Amendment grounds.
The Shays-Meehan side offered two amendments to their bill, both of
which passed. One would double to $2,000 the current “hard-money”
contribution that individuals can make to House candidates, bringing it in
line with the $2,000 limit in the bill that the Senate passed last year; the
other would raise hard-money contribution limits for candidates facing
millionaire opponents who finance their own campaigns.
USING ENRON AS A SYMBOL
Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, opened his attack on the Shays-Meehan bill by
arguing that it failed to truly ban “soft money” because unions,
corporations and individuals “could still contribute massive amounts of
‘soft money’ to state and local political parties. ... You can drive an
Enron limousine — 60 million bucks worth — across the country through the
loopholes in this bill.”
Democrats also deployed the word “Enron” to bolster their contention
that unlimited soft money contributions had a corrupting effect on American
politics.
Soft money totals for 2001-2002 election cycle
| 1 | 2
Organization Total to Dems to Repubs
American Federation
of State County & Municipal Employees $1,265,000 $1,265,000 0
The union representing 1.3 million state and local government workers
American Financial Group $1,100,000 0 $1,100,000
Financial services firm headed by veteran GOP donor Carl Lindner
Service Employees International Union $1,079,166 $1,059,166 $20,000
The 1.4 million-member union representing nurses, janitors and other workers
Communications Workers of America $1,065,000 $1,065,000 0
Union representing half a million telecommunications workers
AT&T $1,034,349 $485,250 $549,099
Leading telecommunications firm with 160,000 employees
| 1 | 2
Organization Total to Dems to Repubs
International Game Technology $940,350 $100,000 $840,350
Nevada-based manufacturer of gambling machines
Loral $932,500 $932,500 0
Satellite company headed by veteran Democratic donor Bernard Schwartz
Philip Morris $839,567 $56,988 $782,579
Owner of America's leading cigarette maker
Bristol-Myers Squibb $837,797 $50,000 $787,797
Leading pharmaceutical maker with $21 billion in annual sales
Marriott $751,189 0 $751,189
Leading hotel chain
Source: Center for Responsive Politics, based on Federal Elections Commission
data as of 1/1/2002. Totals reflect contributions made by individuals
associated with each company or union as well as official company or union
contributions.
Printable version
“In public life, appearances are as important many times as reality.
One five-letter word ought to crystallize the point for us: Enron,” declared
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
“None of knows for certain whether that Texas energy company received
any special treatment because of its enormous campaign contributions. ... But
there’s no denying these facts: When Enron began to implode, it called
officials at the highest levels of our national government and those calls
did not go unanswered. And when the Bush administration began to draft its
energy policy, it rolled out the red carpet for Enron’s participation.”
Last October Enron officials and former Clinton Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin, now a top executive at Citigroup, one of Enron’s creditors,
called Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Treasury Undersecretary Peter Fisher
and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan to seek their intervention to
forestall Enron’s bankruptcy. O’Neill, Fisher and Greenspan rebuffed their
pleas for help.
Advertisement
Officials of the now-bankrupt Enron were major contributors to
Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and have also given campaign donations to
many members of the House and Senate.
Enron and its executives gave $1,138,990 in “soft money”
contributions to the Republicans in the 1999-2000 campaign cycle and $532,565
in soft money to the Democrats.
Enron’s “soft money” contributions accounted for about 0.4 percent of
total Republican “soft money” in the 2000 campaign and about 0.2 percent of
total Democratic “soft money.”
How much can you give?
Federal law imposes these limits on political contributions by individuals:
• $1,000 for the primary election and $1,000 for the general election to
each candidate for federal office.
• $5,000 per year to a political action committee (PAC).
• $20,000 per year to a national party committee.
• No limit on "soft money" contributions for party-building and
get-out-the-vote efforts, but the amount of donation must be disclosed to
Federal Election Commission.
• Corporations and labor unions are forbidden to donate directly to a
candidate, but may form political action committees which can donate $5,000
per election to a candidate.
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any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use
without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational
purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ]
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