Lott Ties Up Campaign Reform Legislation

A majority of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday went on record for the first time in support of a broad campaign finance reform bill but its backers were stymied when the Republican leadership invoked a rare parliamentary procedure that probably dooms the measure.

The 51-48 vote was largely a symbolic victory for the so-called McCain-Feingold legislation, which would ban millions of dollars in unregulated contributions that were at the center of congressional investigations into irregularities in the 1996 presidential campaigns.

The parliamentary maneuver by Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) so angered Senate Democrats that they vowed to all but tie up the Senate for the rest of the year unless Republicans allow an unfettered debate on changing the nation’s election laws.

The matter is to be revisited today, although Lott previously has served notice that he does not intend to let the campaign finance reform controversy take up the Senate calendar beyond this week.

The threatened gridlock is a virtual replay of last year, when Lott also blocked full consideration of the McCain-Feingold bill, causing its backers to use parliamentary ploys of their own to prevent the Senate from getting much else accomplished.

Last year’s Democratic protest strategy produced a stalemate that was broken only after Lott agreed to schedule the issue for consideration this year. He attempted to fulfill the bargain Monday by offering his own version of campaign finance reform.

But Lott’s bill simply would restrict the use of union dues for political purposes, which pro-labor Democrats denounced as “a poison pill” designed to derail the reform effort. The Lott measure does not address “soft-money” contributions or other controversial practices allowed under current law.

Besides having the support of all 45 Senate Democrats, the proposal authored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) has three other Republican co-sponsors: Susan Collins of Maine, Fred Thompson of Tennessee and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

When Lott moved to kill the bill, he got only 48 votes. Fifty-one senators, including seven Republicans, voted to keep it alive.

Shortly after the vote, Lott exercised his prerogative as majority leader to “fill up the amendment tree”--a ploy, in Senate jargon, that effectively blocks other proposals from being offered, debated or voted on. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) charged that Lott’s action was designed “to prevent open and free debate.”

Unless the GOP majority relents, Daschle said, Democrats will seek to offer the McCain-Feingold bill as an amendment to unrelated legislation. “Opportunities will be there,” Daschle said, “just as they were last year.”

Besides the co-sponsors of McCain-Feingold, three other Republicans voted against Lott’s motion to kill it: Sens. John H. Chafee of Rhode Island, James M. Jeffords of Vermont and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was absent and did not vote.

Snowe has offered an amendment intended to win the requisite 60 votes to overcome a filibuster by either side. Her amendment would, among other things, restrict corporations and unions from buying political ads.