Senate breaks filibuster on campaign finance reform; battle moves to the house - U.S. Senate

Common Cause Magazine, Fall, 1993 by Peter Montgomery

The U.S. Senate voted 62 to 37 on June 16 to end the Republican filibuster blocking action on S.3, the first time in 19 years that campaign finance reform advocates successfully broke a filibuster.

Senate Republicans used filibusters and threatened filibusters to block campaign finance reform throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Last year, they relied on President Bush to veto the comprehensive campaign finance reform bill passed by Congress.

This year, CC members in the states of key senators lobbied throughout the spring and with increasing intensity right up until the filibuster vote. The pressure by activists, volunteers and staff from the state and national offices was instrumental in persuading seven Republican senators to break ranks with their party leaders and end the filibuster.

Ending the filibuster was a key breakthrough in the long battle for campaign finance reform, but it also came at a serious price. The seven Republican senators who voted to end the filibuster insisted in return that a critical element of reform be dropped, the publicly funded communication vouchers, which challengers could use to buy TV or radio time and pay for mailings. These resources are necessary to remove special interest money from the system and to provide Senate challengers with a greater opportunity to compete.

S.3 includes a number of other important measures to make elections fairer for challengers. If the spending limits in S.3 had been in effect during the 1992 campaigns, for example, Senate incumbent spending would have been cut by one-third, or $37 million. The bill's PAC restrictions would have greatly reduced the financial advantages of incumbents - who outraised challengers $38.3 million to $6.4 million in PAC funds - and eliminated at least two-thirds of incumbents' PAC money.

The bill would bar incumbents from sending franked mass mailings during election years. And the discount broadcast and mail provisions would provide challengers with $20 million in new resources.

In addition, the Senate bill would shut down two of the biggest abuses of the current system, the soft money and bundling loopholes, and would restrict contributions by lobbyists.

In spite of these important reform provisions, and even with most of the direct public campaign resources removed from the bill, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continued their effort to kill the bill with a filibuster. CC President Fred Wertheimer called their unsuccessful effort "a defense of the corrupt status quo and a grave disservice to the country."

Common Cause will continue to fight for public campaign resources as the legislation moves forward in Congress. The legislative battle and Common Cause's grassroots activities will now shift to the House, which is expected to take up a campaign finance reform bill this fall (see pages 30-3 1).

Lobby Disclosure

On May 6 the Senate passed S.349, the Lobby Disclosure Act of 1993, which included a CC-supported amendment by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) requiring lobbyists to disclose on a member-by-member basis the financial benefits they provide to members of Congress and their staffs. Because representatives, senators and their top aides frequently receive trips, tickets, gifts and other benefits from lobbyists, there is intense resistance in Congress to requiring such disclosure. While CC supports an outright ban on these benefits, it is working to ensure that, until a complete ban is enacted, these benefits are disclosed in a comprehensive and meaningful way. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) has introduced a gifts ban bill in the Senate.

Reps. Eric Fingerhut (D-Ohio) and Karen Shepherd (D-Utah), co-chairs of the House freshman Democratic reform task force, have taken the lead on strong lobby reform measures in the House. They have introduced legislation that includes the Wellstone lobby disclosure provisions and a gifts ban for members of Congress and their staffs.

National Governing

Board Meets

The CC National Governing Board met in Washington June 12-13. The board reelected Ned Cabot as CC Chair for a two-year term beginning in February 1994 and approved Cabot's nomination of Fred Wertheimer to another term as president of the organization.

The board approved Cabot's nomination of two individuals to the board: George D. Goodman, executive director, Michigan Municipal League, Ann Arbor, Mich., a former member of the CC National Governing Board; and Arturo Vargas, vice president, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), Los Angeles, Calif., a current member of the state board of California Common Cause.

The board also elected the following officers: Ann McBride, senior vice president; Nick Ucci, vice president for finances and management, and treasurer; Susan Manes, vice president for issue development; Deborah Baldwin, vice president for publications; Dorothy Cecelski, secretary; Randy Huwa, vice president for financial development and planning; Jane Mentzinger, vice president for membership and communications; Jay Hedlund, vice president for grassroots lobbying; and Mike Mawby, vice president for legislation.