Bass Signs Shays-Meehan, Hits Andersen
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24–After addressing a congressional subcommittee on its investigation of the Enron accounting scandal yesterday, Rep. Charles Bass (R-NH) agreed, after months of hesitation, to sign a petition that will force House vote on the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill.
At the start of the jammed-packed Enron hearing by the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, Bass joined other subcommittee members in decrying the shredding of Enron-related documents by accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Enron is no stranger to financing campaigns, having contributed $6 million to politicians since the 1990 election cycle, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“This is going to be a very sad process we go through here for the thousand or so people whose lives have been shredded by the actions of a few,” Bass said. Hours later Bass added his name to the discharge petition that will force a vote on the campaign finance bill. The petition had 214 names before today, but three others joined Bass to bring the total to the necessary 218. Bass was one of only 20 Republicans to sign the petition.
Bass had been meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert for several months in an attempt to persuade the Speaker to allow a vote on the bill. “Unfortunately, we were unable to reach agreement, Bass said in a statement. “Today I helped provide the necessary signatures to force a vote.” He added that Hastert “has indicated that he will honor the discharge petition and bring the Shays-Meehan bill to the floor in February.”
Supporters of the bill praised the bipartisan effort that brought it to fruition. “This effort has not only been bipartisan but bicameral,” said Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA), one of the principal sponsors.
The Shays-Meehan bill would ban unregulated soft-money: contributions to federal elections. Over the past decade, $3.9 million in soft money contributions have been given to the Republican and Democratic National Committees.
After the House adjourned last month with only 214 signatures on the discharge petition, newspapers and grass-root organizations began to campaign for the needed four signers. Some residents of Bass’s second district received phone calls from Campaign for America, according to National Journal’s CongressDaily, in an attempt to sway Bass to sign it.
“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. “The second district in New Hampshire is a more moderate district, and I think he reflects those views.”
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
