Chance for reform

Before fans of campaign finance reform bring out the horns and party hats over last week’s announcement of a House vote on this issue, they ought to be clear on what Speaker Newt Gingrich actually did.

Faced with the certain prospect that reform advocates had enough signatures on discharge petitions to force a vote, the speaker recognized the inevitable. The public has demanded that Congress clean up the way it collects money for campaigns, particularly soft money. Members of Congress have heard this demand and are acting on it. Speaker Gingrich, who pledged three years ago to work on reform but has not, had the choice of admitting now he was unable to stop a vote or waiting to be run over by the reformers. He chose the former.

But that does not mean that he has changed his position an inch on the current shameful system, and it does not mean that he will refrain from trying to pass an empty reform bill and declare victory. Just last month the speaker tried to claim to have allowed debate on campaign-finance reform when he brought up four reform proposals, which either did nothing or were just plain repugnant, under the suspension-of-rules provisions. That precluded anyone from adding amendments to his sham measures and required a two-thirds majority of the vote for passage.

The use of a mechanism designed for the quick dispatch of non-controversial issues might have put this issue away for the session except for the perseverence of the sponsors of real reform, Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass. By advocating for a bill identical to the Senate’s McCain-Feingold reform, Reps. Shays and Meehan have built solid support for a bill of substance. For instance, it bans the practice of PACs giving unlimited amounts of soft money to the parties and limits attack ads.

Simply because a good bill supported by the public is coming up for a vote, however, does not mean it will be passed. As the Senate proved last year when it had a chance to support reform, all sorts of mischief can occur to prevent the public from figuring out who supported what. Unlike the Senate, the House can’t filibuster the issue to death, but it can tack on killer amendments or drop key provisions at the last moment. Or, as has happened in previous years, members of one political party could support the reform only as long as the opposition opposes it, knowing it will not pass.

Speaker Gingrich has promised an open vote on real legislation sometime in May. The next step is for all the members of Congress who have agreed on the need for reform to stay with the Shays-Meehan proposal and for the public to watch and make sure that they do.