Columnist David Broder: Bipartisan support critical to campaign finance reform

DAVID BRODER is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group.

THE battle for campaign finance reform was big news all year, but when the effort ended in failure earlier this month, the news was lost in all the hullabaloo about the Clinton scandal. That's regrettable, because there are lessons that must be learned if the outcome is to be different in the next Congress.

No one knows that better than the freshman House members who led the bipartisan effort among their classmates to find a way to break the long impasse on this issue. When I talked last week to Rep. Tom Allen, a Maine Democrat, and Rep. Asa Hutchinson, an Arkansas Republican, they had some sensible things to say.

"It has to be bipartisan," Allen began, "and that means we need more help from the Republicans." On two critical House roll calls, only 51 and 61 of the 228 House Republicans supported the reform cause.

Hutchinson agreed. "Republicans have to embrace this issue, rather than run from it," he said. "We have to get ahead of the game, not be brought into it kicking and screaming."

It was the adamant opposition of the Republican congressional leadership that ultimately stalled campaign finance legislation. Tactics employed by Speaker Newt Gingrich delayed passage of any bill on that side of the Capitol until there were fewer than four workweeks left in this session. That made it easy for a Republican filibuster to stymie action in the Senate.

The second lesson, both men said, is that reformers have to agree early on a bill that can command maximum support. That is not what happened this year. The major reform groups -- Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, etc. -- put all their eggs in the basket crafted by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

Early on, McCain-Feingold supporters got 52 votes to cut off the Republican filibuster -- eight short of the 60 votes needed. Nonetheless, when a backbench rebellion finally forced the House Republican leadership to permit debate on campaign finance bills, the major reform groups and supportive editorial pages insisted that only the same bill, sponsored in the House by Republican Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut and Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, merited support.

They turned thumbs down on the Allen-Hutchinson bill because it would substantially limit, but not entirely end, "soft money," the big-donor gifts to the political parties that were at the heart of the 1996 campaign finance scandals.

The reform groups and many editorial writers urged people not just to vote for Shays-Meehan, which would have banned soft money, but against Allen-Hutchinson -- lest the latter draw more votes and thus become the bill the House sent over to the Senate.

Someone once said the definition of insanity is endlessly repeating an action and expecting a different result. Well, the reform groups made that mistake. They argued that if the House just endorsed their favorite bill, as it did at the end of July, Senate resistance would crumble. It didn't.

When proponents forced a second vote on the same measure on Sept. 10, they fell short of breaking a filibuster by exactly the same eight-vote margin they had on the first try.

No one knows if the Allen-Hutchinson bill would have fared better in the Senate, but it is clear, as Allen said, "We may not have quite the right vehicle" to give reformers their best chance. "I hope early next year people interested in this cause will sit down and reflect whether some changes in the vehicle we have could help."

Hutchinson said that in doing that, "we may well have to confront resistance from some of the reform groups to incremental measures. We have to avoid the extremes if we're actually going to pass legislation and get it into law."

Does incrementalism amount to tokenism? Not necessarily. A report issued earlier this month by a task force funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and headed by Princeton's Larry M. Bartels suggested that "relatively modest changes ... could produce appreciable improvements in campaign practice, a better and more engaged electorate, and a healthier political system."

In the area of campaign finance, the 14 scholars on the Bartels task force called for limiting "soft money" contributions, but not banning them, as the bill passed by the House but stymied in the Senate would have done.

They also called for partial public financing of congressional campaigns and free air time for candidates. And they recognized that the press, the politicians, the media consultants and, not least, the public all must play a role in restoring legitimacy to campaigns.

That is not a counsel of despair. It is, instead, a challenge to all concerned to try harder -- and be realistic.

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