Landmark Voter Bill OKd; GOP Filibuster Fails

The Senate, overcoming a lengthy Republican filibuster, passed and sent to President Clinton on Tuesday a landmark bill intended to make voter registration easier for millions of Americans.

What had been a fierce test of wills over the GOP’s ability to exert its influence in a new era of undivided Democratic government finally ended when five moderate Republicans broke ranks and joined the Democrats and the bill’s lone Republican sponsor in passing the so-called motor-voter bill by a vote of 62 to 36.

Final passage of the bill, held up in the Senate for more than two months by Republican delaying tactics, had been assured after a compromise reached late last month by House and Senate negotiators, who modified two key provisions to win the Republican moderates’ support.

The House approved the final version of the bill, which is strongly supported by Clinton, by a 259-164 vote last week.

The legislation, which represents a hard-fought victory for the President on Capitol Hill, simplifies the registration process by allowing eligible voters to register by mail or at welfare agencies, disability offices, military recruitment centers and motor vehicle bureaus.

“Today’s Senate action . . . is a milestone for voting rights. Voter registration will now be easy and accessible to all,” said Becky Cain, president of the League of Women Voters.

As part of the deal that was struck to win over Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) and four other key Republican moderates, unemployment benefit offices were exempted from the list of state and municipal agencies that will be required to offer voter registration. Under the compromise, states will be allowed to offer voter registration at unemployment offices, but will not be required to do so, as in an earlier version of the bill.

At Durenberger’s insistence, language was also inserted to ensure that welfare recipients are not coerced into registering to vote.

The moderate Republicans had insisted on those and other minor changes to address GOP fears that the bill had been drafted with the hidden partisan intent of mandating registration chiefly at locations where Democratic voters are most likely to show up.

Although most Republicans objected that the bill could still lead to widespread voting fraud, the changes were enough to satisfy Durenberger and four other GOP moderates--Sens. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, James M. Jeffords of Vermont, Bob Packwood of Oregon and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania--who joined Oregon’s Mark O. Hatfield, who had backed the bill all along, in voting for the legislation.

Although he voted against the measure, a seventh Republican, William S. Cohen of Maine, helped to facilitate its passage by voting earlier to break his party’s filibuster and clear the way for final passage. That vote was 63 to 37--three more than the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

Supporters hailed final passage as a long overdue reform that will encourage minorities and other groups with traditionally low voter registration rates to go to the polls on Election Day.

Most Republicans, however, had demanded that the Democrats find a way of paying for the bill before giving it their support. As passed, states and local governments will bear the estimated $200-million burden of implementing the new law.

In an on-and-off debate that began in early March, the Republicans successfully blocked the bill three times, provoking Democratic charges that they were perpetuating gridlock by asserting the right to filibuster at every legislative turn.

With each confrontation, the political stakes were raised until they overshadowed the debate over the bill itself. For the Republicans, filibustering the motor-voter bill became a test of the unity they would later show in stopping the President’s stimulus package, as well as being a warm-up for the opposition they hope to mount to Clinton’s proposals for campaign finance reform.

* CORPORATE TAX HIKE: Rostenkowski favors lower levy to ease passage of Clinton’s deficit-cutting bill. A10