House members cast eyes toward finance debate

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House lawmakers streamed back up Capitol Hill on Tuesday, fresh from 10 days off to mark Independence Day and mindful of this week's expected fierce debate on campaign finance overhaul.

The chamber is scheduled to take up two campaign finance measures late in the week, with one -- a bill that mirrors the high-profile legislation passed by the Senate in April -- facing a tough challenge from a GOP leadership-supported bill.

Passage of the leadership-championed measure could endanger the broader chances of a campaign finance bill reaching President Bush's desk for signature.

The leadership-backed bill, sponsored by the unlikely pairing of Ohio Republican Bob Ney and Maryland Democrat Albert Wynn, addresses some basic constitutional tenets that Ney and others say the alternative ignores -- the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech.

But the alternative bill, drafted by Chris Shays, R-Connecticut, and Marty Meehan, D-Massachusetts, is the more high-profile of the two. It closely resembles the successful Senate bill, which was drafted by the popular Republican maverick John McCain and Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat.

And, the Shays-Meehan bill holds the high distinction of having been passed by the House in each of the last two congressional sessions, when McCain couldn't even get his bill to the Senate floor for a vote.

VIDEO CNN's Eileen O'Connor reports on the fundamentals of the campaign debate as viewed in the House (July 9) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

The congressional landscape has changed considerably this year. McCain and Feingold were successful in the Senate back in April because the chamber was -- at the time -- evenly divided, with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats. By appealing to moderates and accepting a number of compromises during debate, the two saw their bill passed by a 59-41 margin.

The House, meanwhile, is firmly in the control of the Republican Party, though the seat margin is slim. While Shays-Meehan is still held in high regard among many Democrats and Republicans, the House leadership has changed its tact this year -- using the First Amendment argument behind the Ney-Wynn bill to woo members of the congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses.

And by some accounts, they are making inroads.

Like the McCain-Feingold bill in the Senate, Shays-Meehan would ban unregulated, "soft money" donations to the major parties. Ney-Wynn would cap such donations at $75,000 in most cases.

"Soft money" is the term used to describe the unlimited amounts of cash that may be pledged by individuals or organizations to the parties. That money is to be used, according to federal election guidelines, for "party-building" purposes, but McCain and others have argued for years that it often is used to benefit individual candidates.

The McCain bill, and its companion bill in the House, would set limits on so-called issue ads -- political advertisements ostensibly about an issue, but with the practical effect of hurting or helping a specific candidate. McCain and his supporters argue that a large percentage of soft money donations are spent on such radio and television spots.

McCain and Feingold initially had sought to have issue ads banned entirely, but a compromise provision inserted into their bill during Senate consideration now calls for a moratorium on the distribution of such ads 60 days out from Election Day.

That's where Ney and Wynn feel they can knock down McCain and the Shays-Meehan bill, at least as far as undecided House members are concerned. Ney has referred to the 60-day language as a "gag clause," saying it amounts to a squelching of free speech.

An odd assortment of outside groups agree, including the National Rifle Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, which have aligned to combat the Shays-Meehan bill.

The NRA told The Associated Press on Tuesday it would "mobilize an unprecedented grass-roots response against this unprecedented assault on the First Amendment."

McCain said Monday that the proposals recommended by Ney weren't fixes at all.

"All the scandals we have known in the past, the $50,000 coffees, and nights in the Lincoln Bedroom … would be allowed under this sham piece of legislation," he told CNN.

But even some business groups are coming down on the side that wants to end soft money contributions. A representative of the Committee for Economic Development, whose members include a number of well-known corporations, told the AP that "you don't have to be a woolly headed liberal to think it's time to ban soft money."

The president, meanwhile, is content to lay low on the issue, interested instead on urging Congress to get to his faith-based initiatives, his public education overhaul package, and a patients' bill of rights to his liking, before August.