Lawmakers stake positions on campaign finance bill

By Ian Christopher McCaleb
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With one day to go before the House engages in its long-awaited campaign finance debate, operatives for both parties fanned out Wednesday across the Capitol complex to ascertain just where Thursday's votes will fall.

Party leaders say they expect Thursday's consideration of two competing proposals to lead to several "nail-biting" close votes before one emerges a clear victor, and no one was willing to place bets on which bill that would be.

Democrats and Republicans came together Wednesday morning in concerted moves to close ranks around the bills -- with the House minority Democrats by and large supporting the so-called Shays-Meehan bill, which seeks to ban "soft money" donations to the parties, and Republicans falling behind an alternative that would limit but not prohibit such donations.

The full Republican Conference huddled together on Wednesday morning in a House office building meeting room, joined by President Bush, who made the quick drive up Pennsylvania Avenue just after 9 a.m. to urge his partisan brethren to stay united on a number of pressing issues.

Democrats were engaged in a similar meeting at another location.

The White House insisted the president was on hand to repeat calls he issued earlier in the week for Congress to get cracking on a workable patients' bill of rights, his education package and his faith-based initiatives before the August recess.

VIDEO CNN's Bruce Morton on what is at stake in the House debate on campaign finances (July 11) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

But campaign finance was the topic of the day.

The White House favors the alternative bill, created by Reps. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and Albert Wynn, D-Maryland, but is purposefully staying out of the campaign finance fight, leaving the politicking to the House Republican leadership.

Sources at the White House said earlier this week that the president would likely be inclined to sign any bill that overhauls the campaign finance system, once it reaches his desk.

Ney bolted the GOP meeting to appear before reporters at midmorning, arguing that his bill was a "reasonable alternative" to the Shays-Meehan legislation, which he said was undergoing constant changes in language to make it more appealing to a broad swath of members.

"This is a good, responsible bill," Ney said of his measure. "People are starting to become confused about what Shays-Meehan is anymore."

Shays-Meehan -- drafted by Chris Shays, R-Connecticut, and Marty Meehan, D-Massachusetts -- has been on the scene in the House for more than three years. It closely resembles the successful bill that passed the Senate in April, which was drafted by popular Republican maverick John McCain and Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, left, and President Bush on Wednesday

Like the McCain-Feingold bill in the Senate, Shays-Meehan would, for the most part, 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.

The uncertain fortunes of the two House bills have birthed some odd alliances in advance of Thursday's debate, and many groups inside Congress that are normally aligned with one party or the other are having a hard time pinning down the loyalties of their members.

Wynn, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that group was engaged in its own spirited debate. The Ney-Wynn bill has been designed, in part, to appeal to groups such as the CBC and the Hispanic Caucus, each of whom regularly support the Democratic leadership.

"There is a diverse opinion in the CBC," Wynn said Wednesday. "There is a pretty significant division of opinion."

There are some splits in the GOP as well. When earlier versions of the Shays-Meehan bill passed the House in 1998 and 1999, they were supported by significant numbers of Republicans who either described themselves as moderates, or, citing alleged irregularities in the Clinton White House, said the time for change had come.