Campaign Reform Foes Concede Senate Passage

With a crucial Senate vote scheduled for today, campaign finance legislation appeared headed for final approval as opponents of the fund-raising reforms conceded the fight in Congress and prepared to do battle in the courts.

Last week, Senate Democrats who support the bill had been gearing up against their Republican opponents--warning of possible all-night sessions to counter any stalling maneuvers that could emerge.

But by late Tuesday, most suspense over the bill’s fate in the Senate was vanishing. The only remaining questions were how quickly debate on the bill would end and what its final margin of passage would be.

The bill would ban the unlimited donations to national political parties known as soft money, impose new regulations on certain forms of political advertising and double the amount of money an individual donor can give directly to a candidate for Congress or president.

If enacted, it would be the broadest overhaul of election law since the post-Watergate reforms of 1974.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for years the leading opponent of reform, conceded that the bill would in all likelihood be approved, and he predicted that President Bush would sign it.

“I’d be really surprised if he didn’t,” McConnell told reporters. But he reiterated that he plans to become the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the bill’s constitutionality once it becomes law.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the bill’s best-known proponent, said congressional debate would end as early as today. “It’s over,” he said. “It’s time to close.”

The bill the Senate is considering won approval last month from the House on a 240-189 vote.

The first scheduled vote in the Senate would be on whether to force final action on the bill. Under Senate rules, that vote will require 60 votes for approval, a margin that both sides say proponents appear to have. At some point afterward, also probably today, the Senate would then vote on final passage. That formality, requiring only a simple majority of 51 senators, would clear Congress to send the bill to the White House.

Bush would then have less than two weeks after receiving the bill to decide whether to sign it.

In another legislative matter, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) told reporters that Republican and Democratic negotiators were nearing a breakthrough on separate legislation to overhaul voting procedures after the 2000 election controversy.

“It would be quite an historic week if in the same week we pass campaign reform and election reform,” Daschle said. “I think that that is a real possibility.”