Pair Pulled Bill From Brink of Defeat

They feared the worst when even allies began voting against their plan to revamp the nation’s much-maligned campaign financing system.

But as Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) soon discovered, some supporters were backing so-called “poison pill” amendments to the bill simply because they were confused. The provisions--offered by reform foes--frequently seemed innocuous, but their effect would be to eat away at the fragile coalition backing the measure.

Quickly, Shays and Meehan produced “scorecards,” which told backers how to vote on the barrage of amendments, and began handing them out at the doors of the House chamber as members entered for each roll-call vote.

The tactic worked like a charm. Time and again, no fewer than three dozen Republicans--and sometimes more--joined a near-solid Democratic front to reject one killer amendment after another. The votes were taken over the course of 10 weeks of sporadic debate, which took place--by the design of GOP leaders opposing the legislation--almost without variation late at night.

Finally, on Monday evening, the House passed the most sweeping campaign reform legislation since the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, thanks largely to the efforts of Shays and Meehan, two men who would not take no for an answer.

Shays, 53, is a man with a quick smile--and a stubborn streak. As a state representative, he landed in jail for a week in 1985 after defying a judge by openly criticizing what he regarded as judicial corruption. Two years later, he won a special election in the Connecticut congressional district made up largely of New York suburbs and he has won reelection easily ever since.

A liberal on some cultural issues, he nonetheless usually has served as a strong ally of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Shays, for instance, was among the first to warn Gingrich last year that some House Republicans were plotting to unseat him. “I am very much a part of the Republican revolution,” Shays once said. “But I am still an independent person.”

His current collaborator, Meehan, 43, is a tough, onetime prosecutor who, in his third House term from a district in northern Massachusetts, is just now learning not to go for an opponent’s jugular every time. A former congressional aide, Meehan first won his seat by toppling a Democratic incumbent in the party’s primary. Before embracing campaign finance reform, he was known as one of Congress’ most dedicated anti-tobacco crusaders.

Shays and Meehan were tested several times as they guided their bill.

In February, the Senate appeared to disrupt momentum for reform when it killed a major bill addressing the issue. But Shays and Meehan refused to let that deter them.

The House leadership, meanwhile, was going to great lengths to stack the deck procedurally against their efforts. At first, Gingrich decreed that any campaign finance reform legislation would need a two-thirds majority for enactment. Rebellion within GOP ranks thwarted that plan, so Gingrich and his lieutenants turned to the “poison pill” amendments.

Through it all, Shays and Meehan never gave up, working doggedly to forge and hold together their coalition. The secret to their collaboration?

“We trust one another totally,” Meehan said in a recent interview. “We’re very candid with one another.”