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Shays-Meehan Measure Overcomes Hurdles In Floor Debate Beset by Partisan Bickering
The House appeared headed toward passage late Feb. 13 of a campaign finance reform bill (H.R. 2356) sponsored by Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin Meehan (D-Mass.), which would restrict unlimited "soft money" contributions to the political parties.
In an early test, the bill offered by Shays and Meehan easily beat back competing proposals by a vote of 240-191. Supporters of the measure also fended off several amendments they said would weaken it.
The House passed an amendment to strip out a Senate-approved measure to lower the cost of television advertising time to candidates. Shays and Meehan opposed the amendment but said they did not believe it would derail their bill.
The House also approved by voice vote a so-called "millionaire's amendment" to aid candidates facing wealthy, self-financed opponents. The provision mirrors a measure in the companion campaign finance bill passed by the Senate last year.
However, debate on further amendments to the Shays-Meehan bill was expected to continue possibly into the early morning hours of Feb. 14, and it was unclear whether reform supporters would be able to defeat all of the amendments offered by the bill's opponents.
Much of the debate early in the day surrounded a change that the bill's sponsors made to the bill the evening of Feb. 12, to allow the political parties to use soft money after the November elections to pay off debts incurred from the election. Republicans called the provision, which was written in general terms, a new loophole in which soft money could be used to pay debts involving regulated "hard money." They said it would favor Democrats, who in recent years have raised a greater proportion of their total funding through soft money.
Supporters of the bill denied the charge and said the provision would not affect current limits on spending of soft money.
Battle Over Effective Date.
According to GOP aides, their goal in focusing on this provision was to win support of an amendment to change the effective date of the Shays-Meehan bill to Feb. 14, rather then have the bill take effect after the November elections. The ultimate goal of the bill's opponents was to attach one or more amendments that would force the bill into a House-Senate conference, where bill supporters fear it could be stalled or killed.
Reform supporters argued that it would be too easy to kill the bill in a conference committee. They said they want a bill that could simply go to the Senate for a final vote before heading to the White House.
Opponents of the bill also were expected to focus on another "loophole" that would allow federal officeholders to solicit funds for nonprofit 501(c) organizations. The bill's sponsors, however, were expected to argue that the bill actually would restrict contributions to $20,000 per year if the purpose of the fund-raiser was to solicit funds for voter registration or get-out-the-vote drives.
Lawyer Versus Lawyer.
The Shays-Meehan provision questioned by Republicans stated that, "Prior to Jan. 1, 2003, the committee may spend such funds to retire outstanding debts or obligations incurred" as a result of this November's election.
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) charged that between the election and Jan. 1, 2003, the parties could use soft money to pay hard-money debts for the first time. Current regulations prohibit such a transfer of funds. Shays, however, said flatly that such an interpretation was wrong and that there was no intent to change current regulations.
Later, both sponsors and opponents of the bill produced conflicting letters from election law attorneys in an attempt to prove their case.
In support of the provisions, Larry Noble, executive director and general counsel to the Center for Responsive Politics, said the provisions would not supersede current law, which clearly states that soft money may only be used to pay for soft money debts.
That assessment was seconded by Trevor Potter, a former commissioner and chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
In opposition, a top Republican lawyer, Benjamin Ginsberg, with the Washington law firm Patton Boggs L.L.P., said the language was non-specific and would allow a party committee to pay any debt with soft money. "It fails to differentiate between federal debt and non-federal debt," he wrote.
Two current FEC commissioners, David Mason and Bradley Smith, concurred with Ginsberg, writing that the Shays-Meehan bill would invalidate the commission's current regulations on soft money allocations. "If Congress wishes to prohibit the use of soft money to retire hard money debts during the transition period, the legislation should be amended to specify this restriction," they wrote.
President Still Undecided.
At the White House, President Bush gave the legislation emerging from the House of Representatives a lukewarm endorsement, saying he wanted to sign a bill into law that "improves the system" but holding back giving his support to the Shays-Meehan bill.
"I want to sign a bill that improves the system," Bush said when specifically asked if he would sign the Shays-Meehan bill into law if it got to his desk. "And it seems like to me that if they get a bill out of the House of Representatives that improves the system, it ought to be in effect immediately. But we'll see what comes my way. And I would look at it very carefully and give it a good look."
Bush mostly avoided questions about whether Republican operatives were seeking to kill the legislation by saying he also has talked to many GOP members who want to reform campaign financing.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer signaled that the president increasingly was ready to sign into law whatever bill was sent to him. Both Shays-Meehan and an alternative by Reps. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) and Albert Wynn (D-Md.), he said, made progress in improving the system.
Fleischer said the White House was opposed to the insertion of what he called the "multi-million-dollar soft-money loophole" in the Shays-Meehan substitute and wanted to strip the provision from the bill. Bush, he said, viewed the provision to pay off hard-money debts as "unfair, unwise, and unwarranted." However, at the same time he criticized the provision, Fleischer said the language would not necessarily doom the bill in the eyes of the president.
"I haven't used that word," Fleischer said when asked if the language to pay off debts amounted to a "deal-breaker" for the White House.
Alternatives Defeated.
In early debate, the House first voted on a substitute bill offered by House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas), which would simply ban all soft money across the board. The measure was called by Shays-Meehan backers a ploy to give political cover to those trying to derail the Shays-Meehan measure.
The substitute failed by a vote of 179-249, with four Democrats voting in favor of the measure. They were Reps. James Barcia (Mich.), Ralph Hall (Texas), Ronnie Shows (Miss.), and Gene Taylor (Miss.).
The House then voted on a second substitute offered by House Administration Ney, which was essentially an earlier version of the Shays-Meehan bill that passed in the 106th Congress. Again, backers of the bill called it a political ploy to kill the reform measure.
Ney had been expected to offer a bill he co-sponsored with Wynn that would cap soft money contributions at $75,000 per year. Instead, Ney said he would offer his bill an amendment to the Shays-Meehan bill late Feb. 13.
The Ney substitute, which reformers said did not contain important changes proposed by the Senate, received the least number of votes, failing 53-377. Just two Democrats voted in favor of the bill, Reps. Bobby Rush (Ill.) and Shows.
The winner was the revised version of the Shays-Meehan bill, which was reported out of committee in July 2001. The substitute bill also incorporated a managers' amendment that the bill's sponsors worked out last July with the Senate sponsors of the bill.
According to a summary of the bill provided by Shays and Meehan, the bill would ban the national political parties from raising and spending soft money. It also would prohibit federal officeholders and candidates from soliciting or raising soft money for the political parties at the federal, state, and local levels.
However, the bill would allow individuals or organizations to contribute up to $10,000 per year in soft money to state and local political parties for voter registration or get-out-the-vote drives. These provisions were added to the Senate version of the bill by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). The bill would prohibit these parties from using the money to pay for television ads that mention federal candidates.
The bill also would restrict so-called "sham" issue advocacy advertising by prohibiting the use of soft money to pay for broadcast ads that mention a federal candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. However, these ads could be financed with more regulated hard dollars. The bill also would require the disclosure of contributions and expenditures of broadcast ads.
Aggregate individual contribution limits also would be increased under the bill to a total of $95,000 per two-year election cycle. Individuals could contribute up to $37,500 per cycle to candidates, up to $37,500 to political action committees, and the remainder to national party committees. Certain limits also would be indexed for inflation.
The bill would take effect Nov. 6, 2002, which is one day after the next election. The changes in contribution limits would take effect Jan. 1, 2003. The bill also contained a severability provision, meaning if one part of the bill were held unconstitutional, the other provisions would still stand.
Broadcasters Prevail.
The first successful amendment, highly sought by the broadcast industry, would have struck provisions contained in the bill to guarantee federal candidates the lowest unit rate of advertising time close to an election. The amendment, offered by Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), passed by an overwhelming vote of 327-101.
The language in the bill would have allowed candidates and political parties to receive the lowest unit rate for broadcast advertisements within 45 days of a primary or 60 days before a general election. It would have required broadcast television, cable, or satellite providers to charge the lowest amount they had charged any other advertiser during the preceding 180 days.
Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) first offered the provisions as an amendment to the Senate version of the bill. The amendment passed handily in the Senate but the broadcast industry has been fighting it ever since.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) defended the provisions in the bill, saying current law already guarantees candidates low-cost advertising. However, because such ads are routinely pre-empted, candidates were forced to pay a higher rate to guarantee a particular time slot, he said. But, he and others said, because broadcasters enjoy the free use of public airwaves, they had a responsibility to the democracy.
On the other hand, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), among other supporters of the amendment, argued that the bill's provisions were an unconstitutional infringement on broadcasters that amounted to a freebie for candidates. "This is a subsidy to federal officeholders," he argued.
Although Shays and Meehan opposed the amendment, they allowed it to be offered by one of their supporters and did not advocate either its passage or defeat. Passage of the amendment was not expected to jeopardize the bill's ability to go straight to the Senate floor.
Gun Exemption Fails.
Another amendment, offered by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), would clarify that nothing in the Shays-Meehan bill should be construed to abridge any freedoms found in the First Amendment, specifically the freedom of speech or of the press.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) argued against the amendment, saying it would neither add nor subtract from the bill, other than to slow the bill's progress to the White House. The amendment failed by a vote of 188-237.
Later, Rep. Charles "Chip" Pickering (R-Miss.) offered an amendment to protect the Second Amendment, or the right to bear arms. The amendment would have clarified that none of the provisions in the bill would apply to communications with information about the positions or voting records of federal officeholders related to the Second Amendment.
Opponents of the amendments said it was unconstitutional to single out one issue or one amendment under campaign finance laws. Moreover, it would not be fair to allow undisclosed, anonymous advertising close to an election related to gun ownership. The amendment failed by a vote of 209-219.
Along those same lines, Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) offered an amendment to the bill to protect communications pertaining to civil rights and minorities. The amendment would clarify that none of the provisions of the bill wold apply to communications containing the positions or voting records of officeholders relating to civil rights.
Hoyer argued that this amendment was similar to the others and that it would only hamper the bill's progress. The amendment failed by a vote of 185-237.
A total of 13 amendments were expected to be offered to the bill during debate. Members expected that the House would finish the bill either late Feb. 13 or in the early morning hours of Feb. 14.
By Cheryl Bolen and Nancy Ognanovich
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