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American Morning

The High Cost of Politics

Aired March 28, 2001 - 13:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: In other news today, the high cost of politics is causing high anxiety on Capitol Hill today. And whether you're talking hard money or soft money, rewriting the rules is just plain hard.

A pair of amendments to the campaign finance reform bill pending in the Senate would raise the limits on what individuals can give to specific political candidates. One would increase it from $1,000 to $2,000. The other would raise it to $2,500.

The Senate voted yesterday not to limit contributions to parties, the so-called soft money that campaign finance diehards want to outlaw altogether. Votes on that could come later this week.

If you're lost amid the details, do not worry. The real drama, as usual, is taking place behind the scenes. Joining us now with the latest schemes and strategies, CNN congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl -- Jonathan.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Natalie, we just a few minutes ago had an interesting development, essentially a timeout in this debate over campaign finance reform. The Senate has taken a break from the debate. They are now on to other business for an hour.

The reason why they did that, Natalie, you alluded to. Intense negotiations going on right now behind the scenes over trying to come to some kind of compromise on that hard money issue. You talked about the two positions, one raising it to $2,500, one raising it to $2,000.

Right now, there is no consensus on that. But there is an effort to come so some kind of an agreement because you have a fascinating thing going on here, which is you have the possibility that the Senate could vote to vote to approve both amendments. You have a list of seven senators so far who have been voting against killing either one. So you have a very difficult task.

And, of course, you have a political context going on here, Natalie. And that is you have a situation where Republicans, the vast majority of Republicans, have all along been very adamantly opposed to John McCain's version of campaign finance reform. But as we get closer to passing it, you have Democrats who have long been on McCain's side starting to get cold feet because they are very worried what could happen here with McCain's bill is you could have a situation that puts the Democratic Party at severe disadvantage because McCain wants to ban that stuff we call soft money. Those are the unlimited contributions given to political parties.

Well, Democrats do pretty good at raising soft money. They raise about as much as Republicans. But if you eliminate it, you do away with something the Democrats were very good at, something they that did quite well last year. And you leave only this hard money, which the Republicans raise in far greater numbers than Democrats.

So Democrats starting to get cold feet. John McCain is very worried that if his bill dies, it may well die because at the last minute Democrats get nervous about it.

ALLEN: So from what you are saying, everyone seems to be -- or significant numbers are running away from campaign finance at this time instead of embracing it. Do you know what the days are like for John McCain and how he's trying to work this?

KARL: Well, as he told me late last night, he said, "Look, I never said this was going to be a picnic." McCain knew he was going into something that was going to be an extremely difficult battle, something where most in own party would do anything to defeat.

He's made a lot of headway. Right now, there are enough votes to pass McCain-Feingold on the floor of the Senate. But he has to go through all these procedural hoops to get there.

They've also -- McCain has also been nervously looking at the White House wondering would President Bush veto a bill should it pass the Congress. But so far from the McCain point of view, there's been good news on that. The president has been making it very clear that he at this point does not want to veto something called campaign finance reform.

Of course, tremendous differences with McCain on the issue. But the president has sent very clear messages here to Republicans in the Senate that they should not count on him to veto this. If they're nervous about it, they've got to make sure they improve the McCain- Feingold bill before it gets out of the Senate.

ALLEN: The haggling is mind-boggling. And we're glad you're there to keep straight for us. Jonathan Karl, thanks.

For more now about it, let's go to Lou.

LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: The typical senator, Natalie, has to raise tens of thousands of dollars every week to pay for his or her next campaign. That's the reality of the situation. All the while, a senator has to fend off perception that big money donors call the shots up on Capitol Hill.

Joining us today to help us learn what's going on in this process is the political editor for National Public Radio Ken Rudin. Ken, yesterday, John McCain, as I pointed out yesterday, said, "You're watching the most cynical exercise you will ever see. We've got folks up on Capitol Hill voting for a bill that they are hoping beyond hope will fail." Help us understand what's really going on here. KEN RUDIN, POLITICAL EDITOR, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Well, it's a tremendous back and forth here between ostensibly the Democratic party, which would like to limit the cost of campaigns, and Republicans who say there should not be limits on spending of campaigns because of free speech limits.

And yet, Democrats need soft money. We saw with Bill Clinton's years in the White House, they desperately needed soft money to balance what the Republicans get in hard money. You know, most small donors -- not the short people -- but small, people who give money in small amounts, they go overwhelmingly to Republicans.

So it's ironic this McCain-Feingold bill, which will outlaw soft money to parties, could be hurting the Democratic Party.

WATERS: Is there sort of a dichotomy here? Some senators have maintained that while an attempt is being made to ban soft money, there's a vote being taken to raise the amount of hard money. Is that considered real reform? Folks are asking.

RUDIN: That's what a lot of people are saying. I mean, we know that soft money is eliminated from the bill. But if you listen to the debate so far, everything we heard this morning, at least this morning, talking about raising the caps for individual contributions.

Fred Thompson, who is a McCain-Feingold supporter, has said correctly that since 1974 the limit has been $1,000 per person. And he wants to raise to $2,500. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, says, no, it should only be raised to $2,000. Many Democrats say that $2,000 is the limit.

Again, we're talking the bill ostensibly is to cut the amount of money in politics. And all we're talking about this morning is how much we could raise in hard money.

WATERS: OK, now what McCain and Feingold fear the most is the so-called nonseverability clause. It will be voted on tomorrow. There are senators up on Capitol Hill like Mitch McConnell who make no bones about loading up the bill hoping that part of it will be found unconstitutional, the nonseverability clause will say that if part of it is unconstitutional, the whole thing is unconstitutional. What will happen with that?

RUDIN: Well, he's certainly straightforward about that. I mean, Mitch McConnell doesn't believe there should be any limits in free speech or money going into politics. As a matter of fact, he says that there's not enough money going into politics.

And so they're talking about loading up with possibly amendments that may get struck down by the Supreme Court. And the nonseverability clause that McConnell wants to put in, that if any part of it gets struck down, the whole bill goes down.

You know, we've seen McCain-Feingold coming up against many hurdles. They surpassed it. We saw that with the Hagel bill yesterday, with the ban on labor contributions. They've surpassed all the hurdles. This is the big one to go.

WATERS: Anything can happen now. And we'll be calling upon you again. Ken Rudin of National Public Radio, thanks you.

RUDIN: Thanks a lot.

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