Campaign finance sponsors vow to continue

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The sponsors of a shelved House bill that would ban the so-called "soft money" variety of political contributions vowed Friday they would continue their fight, even while the House Republican leadership tried to forget the issue.

Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut, who with Democrat Marty Meehan crafted the controversial campaign finance overhaul measure, pledged Friday that he would do everything in his power to bring the bill back to the floor, even if it meant defying his party leadership.

And, Shays said, he would be willing to grind the House to a screeching halt.

"We will have a vote, and it will be a fair vote," Shays said. "It will happen in a nice, congenial way, or it could happen after a lot of conflict and disagreement. But it will happen."

The House of Representatives aborted its planned campaign finance debate Thursday evening, abandoning the two measures that were up for consideration on a procedural vote before either one could reach the floor.

The chamber rejected 228-203 a procedural resolution that would have set the parameters for the debate, effectively putting the issue on the shelf at least through the autumn -- and perhaps longer.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Thursday night he had no intention of bringing any campaign finance legislation back to the floor before the end of the year, and his spokesman restated that resolve Friday.

"I think the speaker is now focused on issues that are important to the American people," John Feehery said. "We need to get working on other things."

Shays, still miffed over Thursday's developments, said Friday he might be inclined, under some circumstances, to urge the same coalition that voted down the campaign finance rule to defeat rules governing debate on other bills until his bill makes a return appearance.

That coalition consisted of nearly all the chamber's Democrats and 18 Republicans. Only one Democrat -- Ohio's James Traficant -- voted with Republicans to move to general debate on the campaign bills.

Move outraged Shays, colleagues

Shays and his colleagues insisted that the rule they defeated was designed to kill their bill vote by vote. Shays and Meehan had sought to have a "manager's amendment" appended to the bill during the debate. In the House, manager's amendments usually consist of a series of minor technical changes to a piece of legislation and are often approved without debate or controversy.

But the House Rules Committee, which devised the rule that was voted down Thursday, said the 14 points in the Shays-Meehan manager's amendment would have to be voted on the floor, one by one. Shays, Meehan and others were outraged and showed signs of the sting even Friday.

"We are going to make sure we use every means to encourage our leadership to have a vote," he said. "There are a number of ways we can force the issue to the floor of the House, and we will do it."

For instance, Shays said, "Enough of us could simply say we're not voting for any more rules until you promise us a fair debate on campaign finance reform."

Another tactic could involve the advancement of a "discharge petition," which, if signed by a majority of lawmakers, could force the legislation back to the floor over leadership's objections.

Shays and Meehan argued Thursday that their manager's amendment was written not only to make the bill more palatable to swing voters in the House, but also to align it with the wishes of the Senate in a move to avoid a later conference. But those changes, they insisted, were minor and would not have altered the bill in a substantive manner.

Rather than face the votes on the 14 points, they, along with the Democratic leadership, urged members Thursday to defeat the rule, thereby cutting debate short.

McCain: 'Let's let it cool down'

Republicans, meanwhile, characterized Shays, Meehan and the House Democrats as sore sports, saying they were trying to cut off debate because they did not have enough votes in the closely divided chamber.

"In the end, the Democrats said unless they could have a guaranteed victory of a bill that would be nothing other than a rubber stamp of the McCain bill, they would rather have no consideration of that issue," said Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. "That may be good politics, but it's certainly not legislation."

Armey was referring to the campaign finance bill that passed the Senate in April, which mirrors the Shays-Meehan legislation. That bill was shepherded by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

Regarding the House tussle, McCain told CNN's Judy Woodruff on Friday afternoon he thought both sides would do well to take a deep breath.

"I respect the views of all opponents, and we just have to move forward," he said. "Let's let it cool down over the weekend."

But McCain added, "We should make it clear that we have many tools in our arsenal.

"We can sit down with Speaker Hastert, who is a fine and decent man, and work this out."

The House approved earlier versions of the Shays-Meehan bill in 1998 and 1999. But this year it was challenged by a viable alternative bill supported by the House GOP leadership -- and the Bush White House -- that would limit, but not ban, soft money donations.

The Shays-Meehan bill would, for the most part, ban unregulated, soft money donations to the major parties.

"Soft money" is the term used to describe the unlimited amounts of cash that may be pledged by individuals or by organizations to the parties. The 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.