Senate Rejects Bid to Curb Corporate, Union Donations

Rejecting one of President Bush’s goals for campaign reform, the Senate on Wednesday blocked a proposal to force unions to get permission from dues-paying members--and corporations from shareholders--before spending money on political activity.

The 69-31 vote against Bush’s proposal, which was sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), came hours after the Senate approved a separate measure to lower the rates that television stations charge for political advertisements. The vote for that amendment was 70 to 30.

The two developments in the campaign finance debate underscored the obstacles facing the movement to regulate certain kinds of political advertising and ban the unlimited donations to political parties known as “soft money.”

On one level, the actions were victories for proponents of such reform. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) both urged their colleagues to table, or block, the Bush proposal and approve the broadcasting measure. Their coalition backing reform--some centrist Republicans and a majority of Democrats--held firm.

But on another level, the actions were a reminder that the outcome of the debate does not depend solely on what the Senate does. The vote against a measure that Republicans call “paycheck protection,” retooled by Bush to include comparable limits on corporations, could give the president reason to veto a final bill. And the broadcasting industry, which has significant clout in Washington, seems likely to mobilize to kill any legislation that affects its bottom line.

Advocates of the McCain-Feingold bill nonetheless took heart from the first three days of the debate. In their view, no “poison pills” have yet been attached to the bill that would break up its coalition.

“So far, so good,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a longtime activist on campaign finance who is seeking to ban soft money. He said tougher tests lie ahead on such issues as raising federal contribution limits and watering down the proposed ban on soft money.

But paycheck protection was a key part of Bush’s campaign-reform agenda during his presidential campaign. The president, who reiterated his principles in a statement last week, also supports a ban on soft money by corporations and labor unions but would continue to allow such donations by individuals without limits.

On Wednesday, Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman, said Bush remains optimistic that “some sort of campaign finance reform” can be enacted this year. Asked whether the provisions on paycheck protection and stockholder protection were essential for Bush’s approval of any bill that might clear Congress, Lisaius would say only that Bush looked forward to working with McCain and others pressing alternative reform plans, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).

By sponsoring Bush’s proposal, Hatch sparked an intense but predictable debate. In previous years, the House and Senate have both voted to reject paycheck protection.

Hatch accused Democrats of using “every ounce of their beings to make sure that union members have no say with regard to how their moneys are spent in political activities.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), though, described the measure as “one-sided” and “absolutely not workable.” He said it was impossible to craft language that would allow stockholders a genuine say in corporate political spending. Several Republicans, including Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), agreed and voted against the amendment.

Earlier, the Senate approved an amendment to the McCain-Feingold bill by Sens. Robert Torricelli and Jon Corzine, Democrats from New Jersey, that would require television stations to charge political candidates the lowest rate available for a given time slot in the previous year.

For many years, federal law has required television stations to offer what is known as the “lowest unit rate” for campaign ads. But politicians often complain they are charged more than that when demand for a time slot increases.

Many irate lawmakers say the practice of bumping ad rates up, or candidates out, amounts to price gouging and helps drive up the costs of campaigning. Wednesday, senators from both parties delivered withering blasts at an industry they say shares responsibility for the endless chase for political money.

Torricelli and Corzine know the issue well. To campaign in New Jersey, they are required to buy air time from Philadelphia and New York City stations, two of the nation’s most expensive media markets. The premium price of advertising was one factor that drove Corzine, a former Wall Street financial executive, to spend $60 million of his own fortune--the costliest Senate campaign in history--to capture an open seat last year.

“Campaigns do cost too much,” Corzine said. “God knows I know.”

Torricelli, who last year chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and is an expert on campaign spending, said the rates charged for advertising were “the other half of the campaign finance problem” now being debated in the Senate. To restrict the supply of political money without attacking demand, he said, is unwise.

“In the modern political age, the cost of campaigning is easily defined,” Torricelli said. “This is a network-driven process, and it can change.”

Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Democrats from California, both voted for the Torricelli-Corzine amendment. They were joined by 46 Democrats and 22 Republicans. The two Californians also voted to block the Bush proposal, joined by the 48 other Democrats and 19 Republicans.

On broadcasting, Boxer said that in California, statewide candidates get the lowest available rate 10% of the time--and the highest rate 90% of the time. She accused broadcasters of “ripping us off” and asserted that “the airwaves are owned by the American people.”

Indeed, regulating television advertising is different from regulating newspaper advertising because stations are forced to apply for licenses to obtain exclusive access to a spot on the broadcast spectrum.

But the National Assn. of Broadcasters attacked the Senate-approved measure as a step toward mandatory free air time for candidates and argued that it would simply expand the number of negative political ads on the already-saturated television airwaves.

“We cannot accept a governmentally mandated system that would take huge chunks of our broadcast day and give them away to candidates on the theory that this somehow would reduce campaign costs or improve the public discourse,” said Edward O. Fritts, president of the association, in a letter to lawmakers.