Posted on 02/21/2002 10:44:16 AM PST by justanotherfreeper
WASHINGTON - Prospects for final congressional passage of campaign finance legislation received a major boost Thursday when Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., indicated he would oppose any filibuster by opponents.
Smith's comments appeared to give supporters of the bill the 60 votes they need to overcome any stalling tactics on the measure that is designed to limit the influence of money in politics.
The bill passed the House last week and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has said he hopes to win quick passage when the Senate reconvenes next week.
Smith's spokesman, Joe Sheffo, said the senator was "strongly inclined" to vote for a motion to end delaying tactics and bring the bill to a conclusion although he would still oppose the legislation when it comes to a final vote.
Smith's position is that there should be a debate so that "at the end of the day no one is going to be able to say they didn't hear both sides," Sheffo said.
The Senate's leading opponent of campaign finance legislation, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has not said whether he will attempt a filibuster or use other parliamentary tactics to block the bill.
Smith, a first-term senator, is up for re-election this fall and faces a competitive race against Oregon's secretary of state, Bill Bradbury.
The House last week passed far-reaching campaign finance legislation that would end the system in which corporations and unions pour hundreds of millions of dollars in unregulated "soft money" into the national political parties. It would also ban the use of soft money to finance the broadcasting of issue ads, often thinly veiled means to attack or endorse a candidate, in the final 30 days of a primary or 60 days before a general election.
The Senate, led by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., passed a similar bill by a 59-41 vote last April. Daschle has said it is his hope that the Senate can approve the House bill without change, avoiding the possibility of the legislation getting stalled in a House-Senate conference, and send it directly to the president.
President Bush has not committed himself on the legislation. He joined congressional Republicans in trying to stop its passage but his senior advisers have indicated that he will sign it.
"That's very good news," Daschle's spokeswoman, Ranit Schmelzer, said of Smith's probable opposition to a filibuster. "The magic number is 60, and as long as they don't flip any Republicans, we're there."
Among the 59 senators — 47 Democrats and 12 Republicans — who voted for the bill last April, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has indicated that he has changed his position and now opposes the legislation. But Smith would join one other senator, Democrat Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, who voted against the bill last year but now says he is ready to stop a filibuster.
If the filibuster is avoided, it would require only 51 votes to pass the bill and send it to the president.
One thing to keep in mind is any of these guys on the edge that have the power to stop the bill or move the bill forward are negotiating right now to the highest bidder.
It would be interesting to know if Bush is willing to provide incentives to borderline congress critters. If he isn't then either he wants the bill passed as is or he knows he will veto it and its not worth paying for help.
That's right. A lobbyist said "don't try to second guess him."
He's giving the Democrats time to gather the rope to hang themselves.
So far, reports are already out about how they're going to cheat by using a loophole.
The more people talk, the more the populace hears the word "unconstitutional", and "loss of freedom to speak."
By the time Bush gets to the podium, people will be cheering him on!
Well done, MinuteGal! We should all do things like this!
Me too! He's letting the people know who is with him, and who's with the dems ( or other parties out to discredit him). That is punishment for trying to pass this thing. He will send it back. It's unconstitutional, and there's nothing there he asked for. He will not let the union thing go, either.
The Demos and traitor Republicans did a great job of setting up Bush. If he opposes the law, as he should, he faces public ire, if he edoesn't his political party, with the possible exception of the liberal RINOs who supported this thing, collapses around him.
If it survived the House, chances for opposition in the Senate was slim to nothing. Senate Republicans are more RINOish than House Republicans.
This is the one line in the entire article that I agree with Smith about! I believe the media is purposefully keeping the electorate ignorant about this bill. No one, not even Rush, knew the nuts and bolts of the bill passed in the House until it was all said and done. I despise the fact that the media is not spelling this out to us. Not everyone has the time to spend on the computer all day and this is being ramrodded down our throats. The Sunday talk shows don't even talk about the specifics. It's all shady and disgusting to me.
PS: My REPUBLICAN congressman voted against this, so I have no beef with the Republican party. He's voted the conservative side on every major bill that comes before Congress, so I wish people would stop grouping all Republicans in one basket!
In the meanwhile, what can Freepers do? Simple. Apply the law. File a mess of lawsuits against anyone exercising their free speech rights. If some website has an ad for or an endorsement of a Democratic candidate, you take 'em to court (in the words of Doug Lewellyn of the People's Court). Because that's a violation of the bill. Then take it a step further by challenging the law. Sue to stop newspaper editorials, on the grounds that allowing newspaper editorials while not allowing independent groups to advertise is a violation of the equal protection clause. I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine that some lawyers out in the great big world could have some real fun with this! There must be some location in the country without a daily paper but with TV coverage (because the bill explicitly allows newspapers but not television ads).
Next, let's show the evils of the database of contributors. Currently, there are these databanks of all these donors online. Let's band together and make a website that reveals all kinds of information about the donors, in an effort to get these lists removed. Download and database the donor lists. Not difficult. Then cross reference them with domania.com or whatever to get the amount that they paid for their houses and integrate this online. Link in their telephone numbers through Yahoo or some other online phone book. The aim here is to get people so mad about this they demand an end to frivolous disclosure.
Then, yes.
Up to this point, he hasn't even seen the paper it's written on.
He is an innocent man, being hung by an anti-Bush jury.
The man is innocent of NO CRIME.
Think whoever's left in the Republican Party, northeastern and west coast Republicans who are trying to get and stay elected in states and districts (like mine) that are 60-70 percent moderate to leftist, will all of a sudden see the light and become conservatives simply to lose in their states and districts by landslides?
You'd be better off starting on the very long job of changing minds. If you change minds first, the politics will follow. How do you think the 60's generation managed to slowly turn us into the country with the attitudes we currently have. Not through electing McGovern, they didn't. They changed the attitudes of the country first (environmentalism, sexual "freedom", homosexuality, education, taxes are good/businesses are greedy, you name it) and the politics followed.
The first problem isn't that Republicans do stupid, leftist things. That's the result. Politicians will always be whores to public sentiment. That's how personally advance (and all politicians want only one thing: personal advancement). The problem is that the majority (or plurality) public sentiment in this nation has slowly turned over the years to becoming very mushy moderate leftist. Start turning it back, one mind at a time, and you will results -- of course only in the long term.
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