Verbal Back-Flips in the House

Even by the standards of the U.S. Congress, Wednesday’s House debate on campaign finance reform was a marvel of political subterfuge and creative flip-flopping. Rarely have so many lawmakers gone to such lengths to obscure their true heart’s desire.

Legislators who for years opposed banning the unlimited donations to parties collectively known as soft money suddenly proposed doing just that. A raft of proposed amendments that looked like they would strengthen the main reform bill were, in fact, intended to kill it. And though the reform measure was touted as ending the scourge of soft money, it did not really go that far.

Summing up the maneuvering that led both sides to accuse the other of rank cynicism, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said: “Sincerity is everything in politics. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

It was a momentous day for the House because lawmakers, after years of casting votes on campaign finance bills they knew were doomed, were finally considering a measure that could actually become law.

“There is a lot of emotion in the House today,” said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.). “This is the end of a long process. The closer we get to finality, the higher the temperature gets.”

After years of fund-raising scandals--culminating in the current frenzy about the influence exerted by Enron Corp.--hardly anyone would dare come out and defend the status quo.

Republican House leaders were wary of a frontal assault on the legislation, co-sponsored by Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), that would eliminate the soft money contributions to national political parties by corporations, unions and individuals--money that now totals hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle.

The GOP leaders devised a new strategy for defeating the measure: killing reformers with kindness. They offered amendments that would push even further and quicker to get soft money out of the political system--so far and fast that they had no chance of becoming law.

It was a strategy that underscored how hard it is for a politician to be “against” reform in the post-Enron environment. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the debate showed how much reform opponents had been thrown on the defensive.

“Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue,” Frank said. “Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it’s an implicit concession that they have lost the argument.”

The intense jockeying was also a tribute to how much higher the stakes were in a debate that could rewrite the political rules that members of Congress will have to live by for years to come.

The day began with the Republican leaders making a fierce last-ditch effort to organize their troops behind their strategy for derailing the bill. The leaders called a meeting of all House Republicans, at which attendance was mandatory. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and others whipped up the packed room, which could be heard periodically erupting into boisterous cheers. It was not a comfortable place for the handful of Republicans there who back the Shays-Meehan bill.

But in a sign of waning hope that the GOP leaders could defeat the bill, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) spent most of his time talking about legislation to extend unemployment benefits, not the campaign reform issue.

When House Democrats huddled, by contrast, they sensed they were on the brink of victory, and a historic one at that.

“This day and this vote is the most important day I will be spending in 25 years in the Congress,” said House Democratic Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

The Democratic strategy session focused on helping members sort through the welter of amendments that would be offered during debate. Reform proponents stressed the need to pass the bill in a form that could be quickly approved by the Senate--avoiding the need for negotiations in a conference committee, where reformers fear the legislation would die. That meant voting against pro-reform amendments that looked good but were designed to send the bill to conference. The situation was so complex that bill sponsors printed up reams of cheat sheets to tell allies how to vote on each amendment.

Undeterred, the GOP leaders pushed ahead with their strategy of out-reforming the reformers. They tried to exploit potential weaknesses in the Shays-Meehan bill--that it abolish soft money donations only to the national political parties, not state parties, and that the measure’s ban would take effect after the 2002 election, not immediately.

“Shays-Meehan does not ban soft money,” said Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.). “It’s already midnight at the costume party. It’s time for us to remove our masks and see who we really are.”

Said Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), a longtime opponent of the bill: “If it’s good enough to ban soft money, why not do it now?”

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), one of the most unyielding opponents of campaign finance reform, put himself in the unusual position of proposing an amendment to ban all soft money donations, not just to the national parties.

“If you have the courage of your convictions and want to put your money where your mouth is, vote for Armey,” said Armey, who voted against his own amendment.

Efforts to strengthen the bill--and thereby kill it--failed. But the Republican strategy put some reform proponents in an awkward position. Just before voting against the Armey amendment, it sounded like Rep. Thomas H. Allen (D-Maine) was giving a ringing defense of it.

“A new plague has infected our elections: Soft money,” Allen said. “If this government is to remain a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we must take soft money out of the system.”

But Allen and others argued that the Republican strategy was a cynical exercise because lawmakers knew it was politically impossible for a total ban to become law.

“Everyone claims to be doing the right thing,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.).