Clutter in House

Of the two chambers of Congress, the Senate is considered the more deliberative, orderly and polite; the House as rambunctious and rowdy.

That view of these legislative siblings certainly is supported by their chosen methods of killing campaign finance reform. The Senate divided itself into two clearly defined camps and let a neat and tidy filibuster do the dirty work. The House is taking its customary 435-member free-for-all approach.

The casual observer of Congress’ sham attempt to clean up elections might think there are but two bills before the House: Shays-Meehan, with its sweeping soft-money ban; Hutchinson-Allen (that’s Maine’s Rep. Tom Allen), less stringent, but still effective.

That observer would be wrong. At last count, there were fully a dozen competing measures on the table, from a nearly do-nothing requirement for electronic disclosure of donors to a highly complex public-financing plan. Hutchinson-Allen is a good bill, it has the best chance to gain bipartisan support (Shays-Meehan is too similar to what failed in the Senate), but it is in serious danger of getting buried under a mountain of litter.

Even worse than the number of bills are the amendments being attached to those bills — 586 so far, which, incidentally and shamefully, is a House record. The bills themselves at least have something to do with the bankrolling of political campaigns. The amendments are just pure partisan gouging.

Republicans want to tack on something that limits which presidential pals can hitch a ride on Air Force One. They want to restrict lobbyists in a way that especially restricts Democratic lobbyists. They want to rewrite the First Amendment.

Democrats are no better. The minority party would make it illegal to distribute political action committee checks on the House floor, they would make it a violation of House rules to misuse charitable non-profit funds (as if being illegal weren’t enough), they also would tinker with the Constitutional guarantee of free speech.

And those are just the amendments that pertain in some way political campaigns. By the time the House gets through sorting them all out this summer, don’t be surprised if a few parking garages, water projects and scenic overlooks pop up. Then it’s autumn, campaign season, which is no time to legislate. Suddenly, it’s 1999 and, with a bit more fol-de-rol, 2000 and another campaign season. Tempus fugit, doesn’t it?

What the public needs right now for cleaner elections is simple: Legislation that bans unregulated soft money contributions and that restricts misleading issue/attack ads. Everything else is just distraction. The Senate, to its faint credit, dispatched campaign finance reform quickly and relatively painlessly. The House approach — death by clutter — is positively inhumane.