Senate Votes Kill Campaign Finance Reform for Year

The Republican-controlled Senate killed campaign finance reform Tuesday, culminating a debate marked by personal animosity and imbued with the politics of Campaign 2000.

The bill went down to defeat after reformers twice failed to muster the necessary 60 votes to break a filibuster mounted by opponents.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the indefatigable advocate of revamping the nation’s election-financing laws and a Republican presidential candidate, vowed to press on. “We will not give up,” he said afterward. “Eventually we will prevail.”

The Senate’s action marked the second straight year that it became the burial ground for reform legislation that had passed the House by surprisingly large margins. Although reform supporters knew they faced steep odds overcoming the filibuster, they at least hoped for a strong showing that would boost their cause. But even that appeared questionable.

Senate opponents of reform exuded confidence after Tuesday’s votes.

“There is no momentum whatsoever for this kind of measure,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), noting that more senators (48) effectively voted to kill the reform legislation Tuesday than in 19 previous votes on the subject since 1987.

“It’s dead for the year,” added Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

The Senate bill was a stripped-down version of the one that the House passed last month. Sponsored by McCain and Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), it would have banned so-called soft money, the largely unregulated and increasingly large contributions by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to the two major political parties that reformers charge are corrupting the political system.

The vote to force consideration of the measure failed, with 53 senators favoring the bid to end the filibuster and 47 against it. A subsequent vote to take up the broader House-passed measure fell short by an almost identical vote, 52 to 48.

The Senate’s 45 Democrats, including Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California, voted en masse to end the filibuster, joined on each vote by a handful of Republicans. But the vast majority of GOP senators and the chamber’s one independent voted against the motions.

President Clinton issued a statement lambasting the votes.

“Once again, a minority in the Senate has blocked bipartisan campaign finance reform. The failure . . . is a victory for the politics of cynicism, and it leaves unchecked the influence of moneyed special interests,” Clinton said. “The people of this country want reform, and the Senate cannot stand in their way forever.”

Despite Clinton’s remarks, he has not thrown his full weight behind the battle on Capitol Hill. During his 1996 reelection campaign, the president’s own technique to help the Democratic Party raise soft money--overnight stays in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom for large donors--came under fire and helped spur the push for reform. The tougher House bill actually was modeled after an earlier version of the McCain-Feingold proposal. It called for stringent regulations on “issue-advocacy” ads, through which special interest groups promote or criticize a candidate’s record without directly urging voters to support or oppose the office seeker.

McCain and Feingold dropped that provision from their current bill in hopes of winning enough additional support to overcome a filibuster.

Foes of the legislation argue that the influence of soft money contributions is exaggerated and that stemming the flow of such funds would violate free speech protections.

For the maverick McCain, the latest failure of campaign finance reform may prove to be something of a doubled-edged sword.

While his quixotic crusade has afforded him a platform to emphasize the reformist streak that fuels his presidential bid, the setback illuminates his inability to build broad support for his initiative within his own party.

The three-term senator, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, brushed off questions about his failure to win enough GOP converts on the issue.

“On this issue, I don’t lobby,” McCain said.

For Senate Democrats, the two votes belied the fact that, although all of them favored taking up McCain’s bill and the tougher House version, many are loath to ban soft money contributions, especially when the Democratic Party is raising such unregulated contributions at an unprecedented pace.

In the first half of 1999, for instance, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee already has $9 million in soft money contributions--a better than fourfold increase over the comparable period in 1997.

Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) acknowledged that there is Democratic opposition to a ban on soft money donations. “What the Democrats wanted was a vote on the bill,” he said.

McCain put it more bluntly: “The enemies of reform were numerous, resourceful and bipartisan.” He added: “There’s a lot of cynicism in this whole thing.”

Efforts to update the nation’s election-financing laws go back more than a decade. The drive seemed to gain momentum after abuses arising out of the 1996 campaigns were revealed.

But resistance to change so far has proved insurmountable. And with another presidential election year looming and Republicans controlling the House by a mere five-vote margin, more money than ever is being raised by both parties--much to the alarm of reformers.

“If we don’t [enact reforms],” McCain predicted, “there will be more scandals.”

In several days of debate leading to Tuesday’s vote, harsh words flew between several Republican senators. In unusually angry exchanges late last week, especially among members of the same party, McConnell and Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) accused McCain of having impugned their integrity by talking about the corrupting influence of big-money donations.

“Who is being corrupted?” McConnell repeatedly demanded of McCain.

McCain, a former Navy bomber pilot with a short temper, paced the Senate chamber as McConnell spoke. When he finally gained the floor, McCain replied: “I’m trying to change a system that corrupts all of us.”

As the filibuster votes approached Tuesday, both sides accused the other of breaking promises--a striking breach of Senate decorum.

McCain and Feingold said that Senate GOP leaders had reneged on their promise to allow five full days of debate--falling short by at least one day. As a result, McCain and Feingold told reporters that they no longer feel bound by their own promise not to bring up the issue again this year.

McConnell disputed McCain and Feingold’s calculations on the length of the Senate’s debate, contending that adequate time had been allowed. McConnell then accused McCain and Feingold of breaking their word.

Aside from McCain, the GOP senators who joined the 45 Democrats voting to end the filibuster on the stripped-down reform bill were Sam Brownback of Kansas, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, James M. Jeffords of Vermont, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas and William V. Roth Jr. of Delaware.

The Republicans voting to end the filibuster on the broader House version were McCain, Collins, Snowe, Jeffords, Thompson, John H. Chafee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

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OPTIMISM ON BUDGET

President Clinton and GOP leaders are optimistic they can settle budget differences. A9