Bill to Rein In Election Funds Passes in House

The House approved legislation Monday that would overhaul the way election campaigns are financed.

The measure, passed on a 255-175 vote as Congress moved toward its holiday recess, would impose voluntary spending limits on House races and restrictions on contributions by political action committees, but it includes no financing mechanism.

The action capped a marathon battle, first among the Democratic majority then between Democrats and Republicans. Opponents denounced the measure as a “sham.”

The bill will not become law until next year at the earliest because it has yet to be reconciled with a significantly different version of campaign finance reform passed by the Senate.

The House bill was strongly supported by President Clinton and the House Democratic leadership, as well as most public advocacy groups. But it was bitterly derided by Republicans as a phony reform and a “food stamps for politicians” bill biased toward Democrats.

Republicans said that the measure fails to go far enough in mandating real reform, noting, for instance, that none of the bill’s provisions would take effect unless the House next year enacts a separate measure to finance them--something that even some Democrats privately conceded is uncertain.

Despite these shortcomings, Democrats hailed passage of the bill as a significant step toward reform.

“This is the best we can do at the moment to move serious campaign finance reform forward,” said House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), who had made passage of the legislation this year a priority for the leadership.

House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said that the bill puts “limits on what can be spent in campaigns” and represents the “most effective political reform in more than a generation.”

Freshman Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said: “For the first time, we’ll be having elections, not auctions to the highest bidder.”

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that mandatory spending limits are unconstitutional, the main challenge facing campaign finance reformers has been to devise incentives to persuade candidates to voluntarily limit their spending.

The House bill would do this by providing partial public financing in the form of vouchers good for the purchase of political advertising. The vouchers would be available to House candidates who agree to limit their spending to $600,000, adjusted for inflation, for each two-year election cycle. The limit would be $800,000 for candidates who face contested primaries.

The limits are still hypothetical, however, because Democrats could not agree on how to pay for the vouchers, finally deciding to put off the entire financing issue until next year.

“Their bill does nothing and it will do nothing until they vote a revenue package to make it work--if they vote a revenue package to make it work,” said Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield).

Even one of its proponents, Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), conceded that, without a financing provision, the bill is “a horse without legs.” But he and other supporters insisted that the bill is still a “positive step.”

The Democratic bill does not ban political action committee contributions, but it restricts them by limiting the amount of PAC money that a candidate can receive in any one election cycle to $200,000.

The Republican alternative, which the House rejected by a vote of 263 to 173, would have prohibited all PAC contributions and required candidates to raise half their funds from inside their districts--a restriction not found in the Democratic version.

The Democratic package also attempts to regulate “soft money,” which is raised by political parties outside federal election law guidelines and is used to help candidates indirectly. In addition, it bans most forms of “bundling,” a practice by which PACs can skirt contribution limits for individuals by collecting checks and combining them into a large single donation.