Here’s some more. :)
agree with you that Thompson’s support for McCain-Feingold is serious. I did some research on it, and found that while he did indeed support campaign finance “reform,” he was not in lockstep with McCain about the details. Below is a list of campaign finance “reform” votes where Thompson’s and McCain’s votes differed. Most significantly, Thompson introduced an amendment that would increase hard money contribution limits. McCain voted to kill discussion of Thompson’s amendment, but Thompson prevailed, and the amendment passed (with McCain ultimately voting for it). In the discussion of this amendment, Thompson specifically noted that individual contributions are free speech.
For me, this doesn’t fully mitigate Thompson’s support for McCain-Feingold, but it does seem to add credence to Thompson’s recent criticisms of the bill.
CFR related items where Thompson departed from McCain
March 19, 2001 - April 2, 2001
Votes 00037-00064
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_107_1.htm
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00037
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00038
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00046
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00047
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00049
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00053 (this was Thompson’s amendment to increase hard money contributions — McCain voted to kill it)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r107:1:./temp/~r107Kv5YyZ:e0 (here is the discussion)
:http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00054
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00055 (this is the final vote on Thompson’s successful amendment to increase hard money limits. McCain ended up supporting it, although he tried to kill it)
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00056
83 posted on 04/02/2007 3:42:39 PM EDT by ellery
Very interesting. So far, that vote is the biggest negative. I wish that amendment were revisited. It would be interesting to see how the voting would go, knowing what is known now.