McCain's House Of Pain

By DOUGLAS WALLER

When John McCain got the Senate to pass his campaign-finance reform bill last April, he seemed to have cleared the last high hurdle to getting it to George W. Bush's desk. The Senate had rejected the measure three times in four years. The House was friendlier, having passed its version of campaign reform in '98 and '99 by comfortable margins--the last time with 54 Republicans aboard. All McCain's allies in the House have to do now is pass a measure similar to the Senate's. That way Senators can simply vote to accept the version the House approves without the two chambers trying to resolve their differences in conference, where G.O.P. leaders are sure to bottle it up.

Simple enough? Not quite. This week the House takes up campaign-finance reform, and passing it has got a lot more complicated. "I wouldn't say we have the votes yet," admits Democratic Representative Martin Meehan, who's sponsoring the House version with Republican Congressman Christopher Shays.

To get the Senate to pass a ban on unregulated "soft-money" contributions to the national parties, which totaled $487 million for the 2000 election, McCain and his Democratic co-sponsor, Russell Feingold, had to accept amendments that have caused a near mutiny among reform supporters in the House. Liberal members of Congress object to a provision doubling the maximum amount of regulated "hard-money" contributions a donor can make to a candidate from $1,000 to $2,000. Public-interest groups such as Common Cause threatened to bolt over another provision that allows state parties to keep collecting soft money, arguing it creates a loophole for unregulated donations. Organized labor, a key Democratic constituency, opposes a ban on TV ads that unions and other interest groups run during campaigns to help their favorite candidates. And the 38-member Congressional Black Caucus is divided on doing away with soft money, which it wants for turning out African-American voters. "The bill goes too far in reducing the role of national parties," complains Representative Albert Wynn, who chairs the black caucus' task force on campaign reform.

Meehan and Shays have been frantically rewriting parts of the bill to preserve their coalition. They split the difference on hard-money limits, keeping the cap in House races at $1,000 and letting the caps in Senate and presidential races rise to $2,000. But the AFL-CIO, among others, still has "substantial problems with this bill," says Laurence Gold, its associate general counsel.

Smelling blood, House Speaker Dennis Hastert is rallying opponents around a rival measure introduced by G.O.P. Representative Robert Ney, which caps soft-money donations to national parties at $75,000. Ney has already succeeded in peeling off Wynn, along with about half a dozen G.O.P. Representatives who supported the Shays-Meehan bill in the past.

Now the vote is too close to call. Bush, already under fire for being cozy with special interests, is likely to sign what Congress passes--even if it is McCain's measure, which he opposes. So both sides are playing hardball to win. G.O.P. leaders are threatening to strip Republican Representatives of choice committee assignments if they defect, according to House sources. "That's hogwash," says Ney.

McCain, meanwhile, has sent letters to 24 G.O.P. members of Congress he stumped for in the last election, reminding them that he expects them to live up to promises he says they made to support campaign reform. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt has been herding recalcitrant Democrats. Forget your old fear that a soft-money ban hurts Democrats as much as Republicans, he tells them. Democrats caught up with Republicans in raising soft money because Bill Clinton used the White House to vacuum in millions. But W., an even better fund raiser than Bill, now occupies that real estate, so "there's no way that Democrats can compete," Gephardt argues. It's a plea for self-interest, but one that politicians can understand.