IN THE wake of the election crisis, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced his campaign finance bill again, daring President George W. Bush to veto it. With all he has to lose and everything McCain has done for him, Bush should sign the campaign finance reform legislation into law.
This is the third year in a row that the bill, now named the McCain-Feingold-Cochran Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, has been introduced. The bill would eliminate soft money, put greater restrictions on "issue ads," and limit foreign donations to American candidates. It has passed through the House of Representatives two years in a row, but was killed in the Senate both times by Republican filibusters.
But the future looks brighter. Five Republican opponents of the bill lost in the November elections to Democrats. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), formerly a staunch opponent of campaign finance reform, has announced his sponsorship of this bill.
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And in the past year, support for reform has increased. After McCain's failed bid for president, public awareness of campaign finance reform legislation has risen dramatically. In the most expensive U.S. Senate race in history, former First Lady and current Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and former Rep. Rick Lazio agreed to a "soft-money" ban.
There is a chance that the bill might not make it to President Bush. The Republicans still have a technical majority in the Senate, and the 47 Senators who opposed the bill were all Republican. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has said that he will try to push back debate on the issue as far as he can. And Republicans can still tack on anti-labor amendments, which also could doom the bill.
But now, according to supporters of the bill, there are enough votes to block a filibuster, and chances are that it will pass through both the House and the Senate.
After filing the legislation on Monday, John McCain is pressing for an early vote. Even if Republican leaders manage to put debate off until later in the year, McCain and the moderates in the Senate can attach the bill to earlier legislation and bring Congress to a virtual standstill. Thus, chances are that Bush will see this legislation on his desk fairly soon.
There, the decision is up to him. Throughout the campaign, Bush refused to put his support behind the bill, despite McCain's presence throughout the campaign trail, Al Gore's eager support of the bill, and Bush's slogan "a reformer with results."
Soon, judgment day will come. Bush owes McCain big time, and McCain knows this.
After his defeat in the primaries, McCain refused to be a spoiler in the general election, despite polls that said he would win in a three-way election with Bush and Gore. McCain held his tongue and threw his support behind Bush. By being loyal to his party, McCain got himself an ace in the hole. If Bush had lost the election, McCain would have been one of the front-runners for the presidential nomination in 2004. And now that Bush has won, he owes McCain a favor.
In an election that came down to literally hundreds of votes, who knows how many moderates McCain swayed to Bush's side? After all, McCain did tour Florida with Bush just a week before the election. While the party leaders and conservative right may have helped him win the primaries, the "McCainiacs" helped him win the election.
If Bush doesn't pass the campaign finance reform bill, he will win favor with the likes of Trent Lott. But it will be a stab in the back to all of the moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats. With a 50/50 split in the Senate, that would make it virtually impossible for Bush to get his agenda passed.
As Bush tries to pass legislation - and with razor-thin support for his tax cut - he cannot afford to alienate the moderate lawmakers in Congress. Passing the McCain-Feingold-Cochran Campaign Reform Act will win him points with these moderates and force them to compromise on other issues.
McCain helped Bush win the election, plain and simple. And Bush should pay him back by passing the campaign finance reform bill.
(Brian Cook's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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