Bass Signs Shays-Meehan Bill
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24–In a boost for campaign finance reform, Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., yesterday signed a discharge petition that will force a House vote on the Shays-Meehan Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s refusal to bring the issue to the floor influenced Bass’s decision to sign the petition, a Bass spokeswoman said. The discharge petition, which requires 218 signatures, an absolute majority of the House, will force the bill out of committee and to a House vote despite the House Republican leadership’s opposition.
Bass met several times over the past months with Hastert to try “to persuade him to bring the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill to the floor for a fair vote, [but] unfortunately we were unable to reach agreement,” Bass said in a statement yesterday.
Bass agreed several months ago to sign the petition if, with his signature, it had enough signers to put it over the top. Until yesterday, the petition had 214 signatures.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-CT, who launched the petition drive last summer, yesterday applauded the “extraordinary day” that he hoped would erase “the corrupting influence of big money on politics.”
Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., hailed the victory but cautioned, “We’re moving into a new phase of what will be a long fight.”
After a private meeting with Hastert yesterday morning,. Bass and Tom Petri, R-WI, signed on. Later that day, Corinne Brown, D-FL, and Richard Neal, D-Mass., sealed the discharge petition with the final two required signatures.
Bass is one of only 20 Republicans who signed the petition.
At a press conference yesterday afternoon, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt stressed the bipartisan effort that led to the success of the discharge petition. He called it “an important day for American democracy and the American people.”
Last month Gephardt traveled to New Hampshire’s First District to endorse Democratic hopeful Marta Fuller Clark for Representative. He stressed the importance of campaign finance reform in the coming congressional session, promising a bipartisan effort to erase what he characterized as “the corrupting influence” of unregulated “soft money” in politics.
The Enron hearings, which also began today, seemed to have a direct influence on the outcome of the campaign finance petition effort.
Bass participated yesterday morning in the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the destruction of Enron-related documents by personnel of its account firm, and said that he was both “disturbed and alarmed” by the shredding of documents.
Nevertheless, Bass’s spokeswoman said that the Enron investigation had no influence on Bass’s decision to sign the discharge petition.
“I think it would have been difficult for Congressman Bass not to sign the discharge petition, having been a star supporter of campaign finance reform in the past,” said Mike Dennehy, a Republican National committee member from New Hampshire.
Once the bill is brought to a vote, Bass has said, he would vote for it in its current form, though some possible amendments might sway his vote. For example, his spokeswoman said, “he expressed some disappointment that the bill doesn’t entirely ban soft money.”
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire
