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| DEATH TO REFORM? | |
 October 19, 1999 
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The Senate once again voted down campaign finance reform Tuesday, keeping "soft money" contributions legal. Two senators on each side of the debate discuss the reform after a background report. |
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Senator Bennett, why allow the appearance that your party is smothering this thing in the cradle, why require that -- that cloture motion? Why not just have an up or down vote, see what the sense of the Senate is on this issue?
RAY SUAREZ: Well, nonetheless, as a policy maker, as a legislator, as a representative of Utah, you must have some feeling about what the American people make of all of this, this bill rising or falling not on whether or not a majority of Senators support it, but on whether or not you can force votes, cut off debate, these other things? SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: I've never had anybody talk to me about those particulars. I have had people who are on Senator Feingold's side say they wish I would change my mind on the vote, but frankly, I've never had anybody come to me and say we don't like the procedure here, either in the press or elsewhere, so you're the first one to raise it to me. I don't think it's an overwhelming desire, as your question would indicate, rising in the American people that we changed the procedures of the Senate just for this particular issue. |
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| Three defeats in three years | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: Senator Feingold, three defeats in three years. It would seem that the Senate has sort of made its decision. You may bring it up in the next session, but, for now, this idea is not going to go anywhere.
So today was a major step forward. Senator McCain and I are going to do everything we can to make sure this bill doesn't go down tomorrow and be taken off the calendar. If not, he and I pledge today to bring it up again this year. And we're not going to stop until we get the 60 votes we need. But the news is that Senator McConnell couldn't hold his forces today. In fact, that's why a lot of this funny business is occurring. Last night, Senator McConnell and a whole bunch of Senators who say they're against banning soft money, voted to ban soft money on a procedural vote just because they didn't want to be -- have the up or down vote. This morning we didn't even work; the Senate wasn't even in session because Senator McConnell was desperate to try to prevent us from discussing this issue today and having amendments. So the fact is they're hiding; they're afraid of the fact that we keep getting stronger; we are getting closer and closer to breaking this filibuster and winning on this issue, and I'm extremely encouraged.
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| Gaining support, losing support | ||||||||||||||||||||
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SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, you're even wrong on the 52/48; we won 53/47 today. He lost three Senators who he thought he had in the past. For a year now people have said, who are you going to get to go beyond the 52, and today we got three of the Republican Senators, so if you combine those who voted with us on Shays-Meehan and those who voted with us on our bill, there are 55 Senators who disagree with McConnell's filibuster and are ready for campaign finance reform. So he's taken a real loss today. I don't think he wants to talk about it, but we are getting stronger and stronger, and we're going to break this law down. It's just a matter of I think relatively little time before this thing gets done. RAY SUAREZ: Well, Senator Bennett, this apparently, like Dracula -- you could drive a stake into it, you can use mirrors and garlic and every other thing to ward this away -- but this is an issue that's going to keep landing on your plate, and you're going to have to keep dealing with it. SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: I think that's probably true, because it is an issue that the media really loves, and the media keeps it alive. It does not come up spontaneously when I'm out on the hustings. When it does come up, and people say, well, what about it, I found that five minutes' worth of explanation in a town meeting and so on, and I don't have anybody opposing my position. My quick media sound bite -- I've learned you have to put these things into sound bites -- RAY SUAREZ: Not here, Senator.
But the press wouldn't be happy with that. A lot of the people who are driving this issue from so-called public interest groups downtown wouldn't want to get that kind of resolution. The realistic politicians, the people who understand what happens in the real world, understand this is not going to work. Senator Torricelli, even though he voted with Senator Feingold, gave a speech that frankly, I could have given and have given in the past, when he pointed out the tremendous difficulties with this -- this approach. And frankly, it was the difficulties with the so-called McCain-Feingold light approach that caused two Republicans that had been with McCain-Feingold to abandon them. So Russ talks about the three he picked up; he lost two in the process, and it's -- you know -- you pull the sheet this way to cover this person in the bed and you leave somebody else cold. No, we are not making progress on this until we abandon the idea that the way to deal with this is to have the federal government control speech, to have the federal government control who can talk and how much they can talk, and instead start going in the direction of more intelligent disclosure of what's going on and use the power of the press to regulate it, instead of the power of the government.
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: The votes today show what's happening. We have moved forward. Even under Senator Bennett's interpretation we went from 52 to 53 votes. And all we have to do is keep moving in a nice, gradual progression toward 60, and we win. That is exactly what we've been doing. And the notion that somehow the concern about this issue that Senator Bennett expressed is a fiction of the media is just wrong. |
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| The Lincoln Bedroom | ||||||||||||||||||||
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SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: The American people I think no better than the best of us when and the politicians when they know that having the Lincoln Bedroom being sold for $200,000 is wrong. Having people pay $100,000 to be in a special club for the Republican Party that gives them special access is wrong and has a corrupting influence in our political system. It's almost a laugh when you tell anyone in America that the notion that you can have unlimited considerations by corporations and unions isn't corrupting, because I think it does have a terrible corrupting influence on our system. And I think that's what the American people believe. And even Justice Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court in a recent argument said that he assumes -- and I think he said that like most Americans assume - that when you have contributions of that amount, they're inherently - they're by their nature a corrupting of our process. So, this isn't about getting the government in charge of speech. This is about continuing what has been the law throughout our century basically. Corporations can't give this money directly. Unions can't give this money directly, and that it amounts to a system of legalized bribery. That's what we're trying to get rid of. RAY SUAREZ: Before we wrap it up, if you do reach your goal of 60 votes and are able to control the debate, one of the things that may happen then is the thing will be smothered in post-it notes stuck on -- endless, endless amendments. And you still won't carry the vote.
RAY SUAREZ: Gentlemen, thanks for being -- SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: And on to the Supreme Court. Remember, you are going to have a serious Constitutional challenge here because frankly soft money is simply money that is spent to express an opinion and if you say we're going to ban soft money and prevent Americans from speaking, the Supreme Court is going to have something to say about that under the First Amendment. SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: The Supreme Court said it was just fine to ban soft money in Buckley v. Vallejo. They say that large contributions are inherently a problem, and the Supreme Court will reaffirm our right to stop unlimited contributions directly to the political parties. That is the least of our problems. RAY SUAREZ: Well, Gentlemen, that's where we're going to have to leave it tonight. Thank you both for being with us. |
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RAY
SUAREZ: Now, the perspective of two key players in the Senate debate:
Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, is the co-author of the
reform bill; and Senator Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah, is one
of its chief opponents. 
SEN.
ROBERT BENNETT: Well, this is the parliamentary situation we find ourselves
in, and frankly, this kind of activity happens an awful lot with respect
to very controversial issues. I've had some Democrats who have said
we hope you guys win, but we're going to vote against you because it
looks better, and it's a little easier for them to have the cloture
thing go forward, and frankly, I'm opposed to it on what I think are
very solid Constitutional grounds. I'll vote against it in whatever
forum they present to me, but I don't control the parliamentary situation;
that goes to people above my pay grade.
SEN.
RUSS FEINGOLD: No, that's just wrong; that's not what happened today
in the U.S. Senate. The story is that a lot of people don't want to
report, is that three Republicans who never voted with us before voted
for the McCain-Feingold ban on soft money. That is unheard of in the
past. We had today 55 Senators in total on two votes reject the McConnell
filibuster. So we're making progress. And to suggest that it's a defeat,
as you keep getting stronger and stronger, last year the idea was we
didn't have a majority. Then we got a majority, we got to 52, and everybody
said, well, you don't have 60 yet. Well, I think we've got 55 now. 
RAY
SUAREZ: Well, even Mitch McConnell, the Senator from Kentucky who's
been leading the forces on the other side of this question, concedes
that 52/48 is the high-water mark for your forces, but it's still a
long way short of the 60 you need to be able to control the parliamentary
procedure for this bill.
SEN.
ROBERT BENNETT: Well, not here. I say, look, I concede absolutely that
the present system is broken; I do not concede that it is corrupt, but
I concede that it is broken. So they say, well, why aren't you for reform,
and I say, but I'm not for this reform, because I believe the way this
bill is written, No. 1, it is clearly unconstitutional, and No. 2, it
is clearly unworkable. And if we could get away from the press, get
away from frankly people who like the standard line which says you fight
about it, we'll write about it, and so they like to keep it going on
very partisan, very contentious lines, I think we could sit down behind
closed doors and work something out. 
RAY
SUAREZ: Well, Senator Feingold, let's talk about McCain-Feingold light.
The parts of the bill that had to do with issue advocacy were stripped
out because it was said by many to be an easier pill to swallow, and
instead you concentrated on the control of soft money and basically
banning its use. But every time you move towards something that might
create some consensus, you also start to lose some people who were with
you from the very beginning who wanted a really tough campaign finance
reform bill. So if you move further toward your opponent, might you
also risk losing more than you can handle on the other side of the question?
SEN.
RUSS FEINGOLD: I disagree, that's not what happened in the House where
they had the discipline and I give them tremendous credit. There are
a number of amendments a lot of people wanted to vote for but the real
defenders and advocates for reform stuck together and defeated those
amendments. If we can get cloture, we will do the same. We will kill
any amendments that frustrates our ability to ban soft money and we
will get a consensus that we can send on to the House and up to the
President.
