Politics

Who Killed Campaign Reform?

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 12, 2001 / 10:55 PM EDT / CBS

In his latest Against the Grain commentary, CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer charts the demise of campaign finance reform.

As steamy July Washington sweated out the Chandra Levy mystery, a fresh crime cast another shadow on the House of Representatives. Campaign finance reform was murdered at approximately 5:41 P.M. EST, Thursday, July 12. Whodunnit?

The list of suspects is vast; there are fingerprints all over the crime scene.

And as with the Levy saga, it's still something of a missing persons case. The House didn't actually kill the reform bill; it killed the parliamentary rule needed to begin the floor debate. Some politicians say it's still possible that campaign reform could turn up later this year, safe and sound.

But most close observers think that the best opportunity to pass the reforms in years has passed – for good. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., the bill's prime Democratic booster, said, "We're probably through."

Feingold also suggested that, "some other approach to reforming campaigns would be required. That may be the silver lining here."

The motive for this crime was the same the same as always. Just follow the money. A majority of the politicians in Congress perceive that it is against their self-interest to alter the current system of funding election campaigns. And where there's a will there's a way.

For the past several years, Senate Republicans were in charge of whacking campaign finance bills. It was a political certainty. And that meant that House members could cast popular votes for reform bills knowing full well that the Senate would kill the legislation. There was no risk that the laws might actually be changed. These are called free votes.

That changed this April when the Senate, still groggy from McCain fever and Florida-phobia, actually passed the McCain-Feingold version of campaign finance reform, which would have eliminated soft money contributions. Suddenly, House members could no longer cast their free votes.

So the rather large number of congressmen and congresswomen who voted for reform last year, assuming it would die in the House, had a big problem: They didn't really want reform to pass. But flip-flops on big issues really bug the voters back home, and they make for great negative ads.

So two Trojan horses were constructed, poorly, to get these hypocrites into safe territory – one for Democrats and one for Republicans.

The Republican ruse was simple. They just drafted a bogus bill that rearranged some of the loopholes about campaign contributions and declared it to be a Reform Bill. It's the big lie tactic. And it worked. Moderate Republicans who voted for McCain-Feingold in years past could support this Trojan horse and have an alibi.

The Democratic scheme was more complicated.

Most people don't realize that the Democrats are more dependent on soft money than Republicans (okay, most people don'care). This appears to be especially relevant for black and Hispanic members. That's because minorities tend to have very safe seats in Congress. The average winning percentage for members of the Congressional Black Caucus in 2000 was 79 percent. That's a landslide number. Because of this, the Democratic Party tends to allocate "hard" money, which is more difficult to raise, to close House races, not landslides. Many minority members who voted for reform when it was a free vote were now faced with the possibility reform could actually pass, and that their own, personal coffers could pass away.

So the Democratic Trojan horse was the rhetorical mantra that getting rid of soft money would eliminate Get Out the Vote funding and was therefore undemocratic and anti-populist. It was a righteous alibi and it provided all the cover that Democratic vote-switchers needed.

Someday, the stars might realign and this version of reform might pass. Probably not.

Having said that, it has long been a mistake to think that the bundle of rules changes referred to as "campaign finance reform" would have actually brought about the fundamental change in the way campaigns are conducted and influence is peddled that its proponents maintained. The voters have probably always known this, which would explain why they always tell pollsters that "campaign finance reform" is not a high priority.

So chances are, the McCain-Feingold incarnation of the reform spirit in American politics is dead. It's back to the drawing board. Maybe someone will come up with a better picture. If they do, it might have a better chance of passing.