Democrats Threaten to Quit Senate Donation Inquiry

WASHINGTON — Accusing Republicans of “stonewalling,” Democrats on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee threatened Thursday to quit a supposedly bipartisan investigation of recent campaign fund-raising improprieties.

An angry Sen. John Glenn, the panel’s top Democrat, also charged that Republicans are engaging in “a conspiracy” and “a big sham” by refusing to honor most Democratic requests for subpoenas directed at Republican organizations or groups close to the GOP.

The Ohio lawmaker said the Republican-dominated committee has approved 142 of 143 GOP-sought subpoenas while approving only 18 of 43 subpoenas sought by the Democrats.

“That’s not balance; it’s an outrage,” said Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.).

Even in cases where the Republican National Committee has responded to a Democratic subpoena, large portions of the documents have consisted of blank pages marked “redacted,” according to Glenn. In another case, the RNC sent a telephone book.

“We’ve been facing obstruction all the way through this investigation so far,” Glenn fumed, blaming such tactics on “the Senate Republican leadership.”

The Democrats indicated that they are prepared to walk out of the inquiry as early as next week unless the subpoena imbalance is redressed. A Democratic boycott, Glenn said, would “take away any semblance or any fig leaf of bipartisanship here.”

“We’re not going to participate in a partisan charade,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

Torricelli warned: “We are perhaps only days away from this investigation being declared a failure.”

The latest partisan dispute is the most striking sign yet of the simmering discord--and the rising Democratic frustration level--on the Senate committee.

The Democrats made their boycott threat at a Capitol press conference as aides circulated excerpts of remarks made on the Senate floor by committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) in January. Thompson pledged then that “the majority will in no way limit the minority’s rights to investigate any and all parties” within the panel’s jurisdiction.

A Thompson spokesman on the committee said the Democratic threat is “not going to have any effect on Fred Thompson,” adding that the freshman senator “has never been one to buckle under political threats.”

Glenn, flanked by four other committee Democrats, said at the press conference: “There will come a point where we will say, ‘They are going to have to make it a Democratic hunt,’ which is what they’re trying to make it anyway, and do it on their own.”

Glenn said he and his fellow Democrats were not only issuing a public threat to their Republican counterparts but appealing to the court of public opinion in hopes of changing the GOP tactics.

What Democrats hope to avoid, he said, is finding themselves “frozen out” and without “any material to put on [during the public hearings] . . . because we were not permitted to get the materials through subpoenas earlier.”

Members of Congress who would like to see campaign-finance laws reformed believe that such changes will be possible only if revelations of widespread improprieties--by both parties--emerge from the hearings.

But Glenn charged that Republican leaders in the Senate do not want to see campaign-finance reform and therefore are behind the “stonewalling” tactics of GOP members of the Governmental Affairs Committee.

“I can’t help but think there’s a conspiracy of some kind going on here,” he said. “It’s making a mockery of this investigation.”

Similar partisan bickering--but not overt threats of a walkout by one side--has also beset the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, which is also scheduled to begin hearings on the matter.