WASHINGTON (CNN AllPolitics, 7 Oct. 1997) – Hours before the Senate is set to vote on a Republican amendment to the campaign-finance reform bill, President Bill Clinton voiced his strong objection to what he called a "poison pill" addition, and urged the Senate to vote on the McCain-Feingold legislation as it now stands.
"I believe when the voting comes, a majority of the Senate will support it if they are simply allowed to vote on it. All we need now is a fair vote -- yes or no, up or down, reform of the status quo. The American people are entitled to that. They are entitled to see that this legislation does not die by procedural maneuvers or poison-pill amendments," Clinton said.
The GOP amendment to the McCain-Feingold bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), would limit the ability of labor unions to raise and spend money on elections.
Democrats, who have primarily benefited in the past from labor's financial support, say the measure is a "poison pill" designed to kill campaign reform.
The president argued that reform is needed because the growing cost of political campaigns has led to a "fund-raising arms race that has overwhelmed and consumed both parties and candidates all over our country."
Clinton also discouraged a threatened filibuster to the bill. "The choice is plain," he said. "A vote for the filibuster is a vote to keep the soft money system. A vote for the filibuster is a vote for less disclosure, for weaker enforcement, for back-door campaign spending by so-called "independent" groups. A vote for the filibuster is a vote to kill bipartisan campaign-finance reform."
Critics charge that White House support of the reform bill is a strategy to divert attention away from the recently released White House coffee videotapes and the possibly damaging testimony of former White House insider and campaign guru Harold Ickes before the Senate fund-raising hearings today.
But Clinton defended his record on campaign finance reform. "I'm not sorry that I did what was available under the existing system. But I have always been for changing the system. I am just not for unilateral disarmament," the president said.
When asked about Ickes' testimony, Clinton said, "I expect that Mr. Ickes will go forward and answer the questions and do a good job today, that is what I expect him to do."
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) says he will attach campaign finance reform measures to unrelated bills if the labor amendment does kill McCain-Feingold.