ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997 TAG: 9704070095
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ADAM CLYMER THE NEW YORK TIMES
Almost every one of the 57 measures has provisions that provoke more opposition than support.
For years, scholars have been saying that another scandal comparable to Watergate would get Congress to tighten the campaign finance laws.
Now they are not so sure.
For all the flaws in the system, most dramatically the Clinton presidential campaign's unrestrained pursuit last year of ``soft money,'' the unregulated gifts to political parties from individuals, corporations and unions, many representatives and senators see the same redeeming virtue in leaving the laws alone: This system got them elected.
As one of the supporters of spending limits, Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., said, ``Members are not going to change a system that benefits them unless they feel they have no choice.'' Like other would-be reformers, Meehan hopes that Senate hearings in late spring may put heat on Congress.
But no proposal has widespread support. The measure Meehan backs, which would entice candidates into accepting voluntary limits on spending in exchange for free television time and discounted television time and mailings, has Common Cause and many editorial pages behind it, but almost no Republicans, except Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut.
But their Republican colleagues generally oppose spending limits and want to retain the soft money system, which the bill seeks to ban.
House Democrats have a bill patterned on the voluntary limit measure, but it seeks to preserve the role of political action committees, diminished under the Meehan-Shays bill. This bill, introduced by Rep. Sam Farr of California, also retains the practice of ``bundling'' checks, in which a committee solicits many checks for a candidate from individuals and sends them along even though the total exceeds the PAC contribution limit of $5,000. Those provisions matter so much to particular clumps of House Democrats that they are worth blocking any legislation to defend.
Senate Republicans have shown no particular interest in any piece of legislation, but Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said ``a sticking point will be requiring organized labor to operate only with voluntarily contributed money.'' He said: ``I hope that won't be a killer provision for Democrats. It's only elementary fairness.'' Democrats disagree.
That issue is emblematic of the problem in changing campaign laws. Republicans strongly dislike labor's ability to use union dues to buy television advertisements attacking their candidates. But they have survived it, and probably their collective desire to outlaw the practice is weaker than the Democrats' will to resist.
That is true of most of the 57 measures introduced in the first three months of this Congress. Almost every one seems to have at least some provisions that provoke more opposition than support.
It has been 23 years since Congress undertook big change when Watergate led to the adoption of public financing of presidential campaigns, while, at House insistence, rejecting the same for Congress.
So McCain, while conceding that the fight was still an uphill one, said the variety of bills was promising. ``I view it very frankly, as a hopeful sign,'' he said.
He is the sponsor, with Sen. Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, of the most talked about of the 57 varieties of campaign legislation filed so far, and more on the way now that Congress' spring break is ending. McCain-Feingold has modest differences from the Meehan-Shays bill, mostly in the area of being less tolerant of candidates raising money in large contributions (more than $200).
But if action comes at all, it is likely to start in the Senate, where troublemakers have freer rein. Feingold may exaggerate when he says theirs is ``the only real proposal,'' but it tends to be at least a starting point for discussion.
One proposal that will be filed soon in the Senate is an honest-to-goodness public financing measure, supported by Democratic senators like Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and John Kerry of Massachusetts. They are working from a plan offered by Ellen S. Miller, a veteran campaign spending analyst who heads a group called Public Campaign.
If candidates agree to limit their spending, they would get public money and cut-rate television time. Supporters argue that the public would ultimately support such an approach, though their ability to put that hope to a test is uncertain in a day when Sen. Trent Lott, the majority leader, scoffs at public financing as ``food stamps for politicians.'' They also want to strengthen the Federal Election Commission, which Congress created and maintains as a toothless tiger.
Another new idea comes from four scholars and a former journalist, Paul Taylor, who quit The Washington Post to work on campaign legislation. The others, who have found considerable interest but no public commitments from lawmakers are Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution, Michael J. Malbin of the State University of New York at Albany and Anthony Corrado of Colby College.
Their approach concedes that Republicans will successfully resist limits and that public financing is somewhere over the horizon. So they concentrate on trying to encourage small contributions and prohibiting the use of soft money.
They also urge raising the limit on individual contributions to candidates for a campaign, unchanged since 1974, from $1,000 to $2,500 or $3,000, and they, too, seek to strengthen the FEC.
Ornstein justified their plan. ``The alternatives from the aptly named Doolittle plan, all the way over to McCain-Feingold, not to mention constitutional amendments and full public financing are going nowhere,'' he said. ``What we have is balanced, and it does not generate visceral opposition from either side. It doesn't promise too much.''
The Doolittle plan that he scorned is offered by Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., who proposes abolishing all existing limits on contributions. He argues that prompt disclosure is all the system needs, and his plan would require daily filing by candidates and parties, plus posting of reports on the Internet.
He argues that soft money and independent spending play a big role only because individual contributions have been held down, and says he is tired of ``the constant leftward push for campaign reform, the socialistic command and control reform schemes.''
``Freedom works,'' he said. ``The promoters of the left-wing bills basically don't think freedom works.''
Partisan issues may be the least of it. Fred Wertheimer, an architect of the 1974 law, said, ``When it comes to political money we face not a Democratic Party or a Republican Party, we face an incumbency party.''
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