Capitol Letter: Labor Takes Aim At Mccain-Feingold

Senate Democrats who support the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill will return from recess next week to a game where the stakes have been raised considerably by a critical constituency: organized labor. During the past several days, according to Democratic sources, the AFL-CIO has dispatched lobbyists to meet with each of their legislative staffs. The labor lobbyists came to reinforce the message from the organization's executive council meeting in Los Angeles last week: that two major provisions of the bill, which is scheduled for floor debate late next month, are unacceptable.

Labor is on board with the central objective of McCain-Feingold: elimination of "soft money"-the rivers of unregulated cash from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals that flow to political parties. But it opposes the so-called "electioneering" provision, which bans advertising by unions and corporations for or against specific candidates within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. Unions believe the provision breaches their constitutional guarantee to free speech and that it singles out both labor and management while leaving other politically active groups unencumbered. Labor also opposes the bill's restrictions on coordinated activity between unions and candidates. The language is so broad, unions contend, it could bar even lobbying visits and candidate appearances before labor audiences.

Proposals for taking some of the money out of politics have washed in and out of Congress for years. President George Herbert Walker Bush, the incumbent's father, vetoed legislation that would have provided public financing of House and Senate campaigns for candidates who agreed to spending limits and curbs on donations from political action committees. Since its introduction in 1996, McCain-Feingold has failed four times to clear the Senate, blocked by Republican-led filibusters that prevented a vote on the bill. But the Clinton-era fundraising scandals and the popularity of Sen. John McCain's insurgent bid for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination-with campaign-finance reform as its centerpiece proposal-seemed to give the bill its best chance ever for passage. McCain and his cosponsor, Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, said they had at least 60 votes-enough to break another filibuster. Perhaps as a reflection of the measure's new strength, labor has intervened more forcefully than ever before.

That's bad news for McCain and for the Democrats who provide the lion's share of support for the bill. With 66 unions and 13 million members, the AFL-CIO is a huge player in the party, providing grassroots support and millions in campaign contributions to candidates. It is prepared to use its muscle to stop McCain-Feingold as it is now written. "They're really going to push this," says one leading consultant who advises Democratic leadership in the Senate.

The McCain camp says it is early and that labor, like other interested groups, is just staking out its opening position. But they do wonder how their coalition will hold up under pressure from such a powerful constituency. "This is a real gut check for the Democratic caucus," says McCain adviser Rick Davis. But Davis adds that he believes the bigger issue for Democrats is whether they are truly ready to say goodbye to soft money-the heart of the bill. The reason: after years of lagging, they are now as adept at raising it as the Republicans. The nearly $500 million in soft dollars collected by the two parties in the 2000 presidential-election cycle was split down the middle, according to the Federal Election Commission, with $244.4 million for the GOP and $243.1 million for the Democrats.

All of this is in addition to the peril that McCain-Feingold faces from its Republican foes in the Senate, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. When the bill reaches the floor next month, the GOP is expected to attempt to deal it a death by a thousand cuts, loading it with amendments to make it even more unpalatable to Democrats, including a requirement that unions get members' permission before using their dues for political activity, a measure known as "paycheck protection." While prospects for McCain-Feingold remain stronger than they've ever been, that may not be saying a whole lot. It's not hard to see how the bill could hit yet another wall in the Senate.