House Backs Bill to Reform Election Funding

The House on Monday night voted to significantly revamp the nation’s laws for financing elections, passing the most sweeping reforms since those inspired by the Watergate scandal.

The bill--which would end unregulated and unlimited “soft money” donations to political parties--passed, 237 to 186. Its approval sends a strong election-year message that the House, if not the Senate, favors reforming a system that came under sharp criticism after the 1996 campaign.

With 51 Republicans embracing the legislation, the vote also represented a sharp rebuke of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and his lieutenants, who have repeatedly and unabashedly tried to stymie the measure, sometimes resorting to extraordinary legislative gambits.

“We made history today,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), the bill’s coauthor and normally a Gingrich loyalist. “This bill is about restoring integrity to the political system.”

The Senate, which thwarted a reform proposal early this year, remains highly unlikely to revisit the issue before it adjourns for the fall elections. But many reformers said that they see the House victory as a building block toward ultimate adoption of new campaign financing laws, perhaps next year.

“The momentum is only going to continue and grow,” especially on senators up for reelection, said Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), the bill’s other coauthor.

Even as the House prepared to pass the bill, there remained a dispute over the extent of its true support. One of the measure’s foes, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), asserted that some House members who oppose reform voted for the legislation to gain political points, safe in the knowledge that the Senate would not vote for the proposal.

In the closing minutes of Monday’s debate, DeLay said a number of Republicans have told him that they intended to vote for the bill for precisely that reason. But DeLay cautioned against casting such a “free vote,” noting that some special interest groups opposed to reform might target for defeat those supporting the measure.

The bill’s backers insisted that most of their GOP support came from members committed to reform.

The measure’s prime provision is its ban on the so-called soft money donations from corporations, unions, advocacy groups and individuals to national and state political parties. This money is exempt from the limits on contributions to office-seekers that were enacted almost 25 years ago after the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration, and reformers contend that over the years this exemption has proved the most obvious loophole in federal election law.

In the 1996 presidential election, the Republican and Democratic parties raised more than $262 million--three times more than the $86 million they raised just four years earlier. Some of that money, it was learned after the election, came from illegal sources.

The Shays-Meehan bill also targets a growing and controversial practice known as “express advocacy,” in which independent groups buy “issue” ads that support an office seeker--typically without that candidate’s knowledge, much less control--or attack him. The Shays-Meehan bill would more strictly regulate spending on such ads and make their sponsors more clearly identifiable. The intent of the provision is to reduce the impact of the ads on elections.

Opponents of campaign finance reform, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have argued that restrictions on political contributions would impinge unconstitutionally on free speech.

Calling the bill “a fiasco,” DeLay derided it as an example of a “big government” solution that would violate “our most precious freedoms.”

Despite passage, the bill is not fully out of the woods in the House. A competing, less sweeping measure could best the Shays-Meehan bill by getting more votes later this week. Under rules adopted by Republican House leaders, whichever measure gets the most votes is the one that ultimately will survive.

The competing bill, written by a bipartisan group of House freshmen, would ban soft money donations to national parties but not to state and local organizations--a gaping loophole in the eyes of Shays and Meehan.

Joining the Republicans in voting for the Shays-Meehan bill were 185 Democrats and one independent; 175 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted against it. Two Republicans and 10 Democrats did not vote.

Among the 52-member California House delegation, all Republicans voted against the bill except for Brian P. Bilbray of San Diego, Tom Campbell of San Jose, Elton Gallegly of Simi Valley and Stephen Horn of Long Beach. All Democrats voted for the measure except Matthew G. Martinez of Monterey Park, who did not vote.

The measure’s adoption was expected after supporters late last week successfully fended off the last of roughly two dozen “poison pill” amendments sponsored by DeLay and other Republican leaders, and designed to splinter the coalition of reformers.

Other provisions of the Shays-Meehan bill would:

* Ban coordinated party contributions to House candidates who do not agree to a limit of $50,000 on the amount of personal funds used in a campaign.

* Double from three months to six months the current ban on unsolicited franked mass mailings before a general election.

* Require individuals or groups making an independent expenditure of $1,000 or more within 20 days of an election to file a report with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours.

* Create a commission to study further reforms.

The legislative odyssey that led to Monday’s vote was full of unexpected twists and turns.

In February, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) successfully choreographed the demise of a campaign finance reform bill written by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), even though 52 senators went on record in favor of it. Although the reform backers were a majority in the 100-member Senate, they were unable to muster the necessary 60 votes to overcome a filibuster by opponents.

A month after that, a dozen or more breakaway Republicans in the House signaled their intention to join most Democrats in the lower chamber to form a majority to pass the Shays-Meehan bill. At that point, Gingrich sought to derail that effort through parliamentary maneuvers.

He first ruled that any campaign finance reform measures would have to win two-thirds majorities to pass. Because of the core of opposition to such proposals, Gingrich’s ploy stymied any serious reform measures.

But it outraged some Republicans--including Shays--who supported reform and expressed concern that their party would suffer if they did not push for it. These GOP lawmakers began to discuss joining a then-dormant Democratic “discharge petition” to force campaign finance legislation to the House floor.

It was in the face of that imminent public humiliation that Gingrich again changed course, lifting the two-thirds requirement and allowing for unrestricted debate on the issue. That almost instantly attracted about 600 amendments that targeted the 11 competing reform measures--but aimed mostly at eroding support for the Shays-Meehan bill.