
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990                   TAG: 9003081974
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: associated press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CAMPAIGN FINANCE RESTRICTIONS PUSHED

Democratic and Republican leaders are hailing an expert panel's suggested changes for financing U.S. election campaigns, even as key lawmakers plan to ignore them for now.

Democrats planned today to push their own campaign finance bill - with voluntary spending ceilings on behalf of individual candidates - in the Senate Rules Committee, where they hold a 9-7 majority.

However, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who cosponsored the bill with Sens. David Boren, D-Okla., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said the aim of the Democratic bill is to provide a vehicle for compromise when the legislation reaches the Senate floor next month.

Republicans preferred forging a compromise from the recommendations Wednesday by a bipartisan panel of six experts appointed last month by Mitchell, D-Maine, and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan.

The panel endorsed individual candidate spending ceilings sought by Democrats, but with "reasonably high" and flexible limits and a loophole that would let the GOP keep using its advantage in raising money through mass direct mailings.

by CNB