Rep. Karen Shepherd, D-Utah, says the secret to success is endurance. And on the last scheduled day of Congress, she and the freshmen she leads finally forced votes on reform.
The House passed Monday a campaign finance reform bill on a 255-175 vote, which would create voluntary caps on campaign spending and donations from special-interests.Freshmen also hoped for a vote later in the day to reform rules on gifts from lobbyists but complained that Republican critics were blocking it.
Shepherd, co-chairwoman of the Democratic Task Force on Reform, said that freshmen, who make up a fourth of the House, forced reform votes by refusing to adjourn for the year otherwise. Such votes had been promised by leaders in the spring, then October, early November and - finally - before adjournment.
"The ones who win in Congress are the ones who endure, and we have been relentless," she said. "It's tough because you are trying to get members to approve something that will make it tougher for them to get re-elected."
She added that many members were afraid to vote against any reform. "So we have known for a long time that whatever we get on the floor would pass. The problem has been getting it to the floor."
She acknowledges freshmen had to compromise for bills they feel are less than perfect in order to obtain votes.
"Change happens in increments. When you have a chance to make any leap forward, you take it," she said. "Do you take a good bill and go forward . . . or scuttle a good bill because you cannot get a perfect bill?"
The Democratic campaign finance reform bill calls for candidates to voluntarily limit campaigns to $600,000. The Supreme Court has said mandatory limits are unconstitutional.
As an incentive for voluntary limits, $200,000 would be given to participating candidates through "communication vouchers" that could be used only for advertising and communication with voters.
The House would have to decide next year how to fund the vouchers - possibly through a tax on donations or voluntary check-offs on tax returns.
The $600,000 limit has several loopholes. It does not include money spent on lawyers, accountants and fund raising. It allows $200,000 more for contested primaries, and $200,000 more for contested runoffs - easily allowing $1 million campaigns. In 1992, for example, a third of the House elections topped $600,000, but only 35 campaigns cost more than $1 million, reports Congressional Quarterly magazine.
It also does not lower donation limits from special-interest political action committees, which remain at $5,000. But it would put voluntary caps on PAC donations at $200,000 per election.
Shepherd had $201,801 in PAC money last year; Rep. Bill Orton, D-Utah, had $190,995; and Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, had $147,351.
New limits - and their loopholes - likely would not have forced less spending by any of Utah's House members last year. Shepherd raised $64,643 in that race, Orton raised $257,559 and Hansen raised $221,781. However, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, raised $4.1 million - with most coming from his own pocket.
Loopholes led Republicans and opponents such as Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Wis., to say that the bill "isn't reform, it's fraud."
Compromises for reforming gifts from lobbyists would totally ban any gift - even a cup of coffee or game of golf. And it would expand the definition of lobbyist to anyone who spends at least 10 percent of his time lobbying any arm of government.
But opposition to it caused it to be pulled from the calendar early Monday afternoon, although Shepherd and others hoped it would be restored. Even if the compromise bill passes, it has many loopholes.
Shepherd explained, for example, that "non-lobbyists" such as a company president could still take a member to dinner and invite the company's lobbyists to attend.
"But the only way a lobbyist could take a member to dinner is to get the company president to come along," She said. "It will cut the repeated fraternizing between members and lobbyists here to about zip. It will cut the free tickets to the Redskins . . . and to the World Series."
The bill still allows companies to fly members to resort locations to address conferences - but now forces them to arrive and leave within no more than 24 hours of when they are actively involved in conference proceedings.