Pushing Reform by a Power of 2

Christopher Shays is the product of the upscale neighborhoods of Connecticut, a soft-spoken Republican and Christian Scientist who avoids caffeine and declines alcohol.

Martin T. Meehan grew up in a working-class Massachusetts town, a lifelong Democrat and New England Patriots fan who tanks up on high-octane tea every morning and prefers his Coors Light in the can.

The two congressmen usually move in different circles, but lately they’ve seen more of each other than they have their wives. Yoked to a House bill that would blow to bits the current campaign finance system, they are tampering with an arrangement most of their colleagues like just fine, though few would ever admit it.

And just as their lifestyles are polar opposites, so too are the stakes of their crusade. In the weeks leading up to the historic vote, Shays has been called a political traitor and informed in no uncertain terms that if Republicans lose the House this year, it will be on his head.

Meehan, by contrast, has been hailed as a champion.

“While Shays is an outcast in his caucus, Meehan is considered a hero for us,” said Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.). “We’re depending a great deal on the credibility of Meehan. And the credibility of Meehan is really very high.” In the final hours before the vote, the potential consequences of their quest were evident in their contrasting demeanors.

Standing outside the House floor just before the debate began Wednesday, the 56-year-old Shays seemed frazzled as his colleagues-turned-rivals unleashed their own version of his beloved bill, declaring the original a fraud.

Shays is bucking his party, and maybe his president. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) calls his bill “Armageddon.” And fellow Republicans are making his life miserable, literally turning their backs on him in rebuff and namelessly chastising him to the media.

“He’s pushing a piece of legislation that is pitifully bad public policy,” said a party strategist.

“Chris Shays will never be a committee chairman--certainly not under this Republican leadership,” vowed a leadership aide. “I can’t imagine how any future Republican leadership would ever think Chris Shays would ever be a committee chairman.”

Shays has long been known as a maverick. “A pleasant man with a stubborn streak . . . willing to risk everything,” reads one congressional abstract’s assessment.

His early political career was marked by acts of defiance. He registered for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War and acknowledges he would not have served if drafted. As a member of Connecticut’s statehouse, he went to jail for seven days in 1986 to protest judicial corruption.

Although no one expected mounting pressure from his colleagues to derail him, Shays seemed caught Wednesday between principle and partisanship. When House Republican leaders had a closed-door conference to whip up opposition to the measure, Shays did not attend, explaining afterward: “That was their time to do their thing.”

But neither did he appear at a news conference held by proponents of the bill. “I was working,” he said.

Even Democrats say Shays seems more gunshy than in previous rounds over the much-debated measure. When he met with House and Senate Democratic leaders on campaign finance strategy last week, he asked that the press be barred from photographing the bipartisan group together.

Scoffed one House Republican leadership aide: “You sell your soul, and then you worry about appearances.”

For all of Shays’ angst, his partner on the other side of the aisle Wednesday looked focused and impassioned, a former prosecutor determined to answer every assault hurled by critics of his bill.

“Now it’s time for a gut check,” he intoned on the House floor where he and Shays stood vigil, leaving only long enough to grab a bite of salmon.

Meehan’s Democratic loyalties were born in youth. The son of an Irish-Catholic typesetter from Lowell, Mass., where he still resides, Meehan grew up listening to John F. Kennedy speeches on long-playing records. He kept a Robert F. Kennedy scrapbook. A Kennedy-phile still, he recently named his son Bobby.

But his resolve for reform comes from life experience. When Meehan was 11, his father, a smoker, underwent heart surgery, giving rise years later to a legislative war on tobacco. His passion for campaign finance reform started in 1992, when he ran for Congress and had to sell his car and twice mortgage his house to pay for his campaign.

Meehan’s political life has not always been blessed. His credibility suffered when he promised to limit himself to four terms, then changed his mind. Democrats in his state recently threatened to redraw his district into oblivion--payback, his aides say, for being a “reformer.”

Times staff writer Nick Anderson contributed to this report.