WASHINGTON, April 10 (UPI) -- Supporters of campaign finance reform Wednesday handily defeated a Republican proposal that offered both popular tax code changes and a possible loophole in a recently enacted campaign finance reform law.
The plan fell short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass.
Advocates of campaign reform said the proposal would have limited the government's ability to monitor political spending by outside political action groups. House Republicans had hoped to push the measure through by likening it to popular and non-controversial tax code changes, forcing Democrats to vote for the entire package for political reasons.
But House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said Democrats and supporters of campaign reform were not fooled by the move. He said he easily mustered the votes to kill the bill.
"While the bill's title is wonderful, in fact it is little more than a cynical effort to created a new campaign finance loophole," Gephardt said.
The measure would have exempted state and local political organizations from disclosing fund-raising and spending figures to the Internal Revenue Service, if they supplied similar information to state regulators. But the bill also would have given the groups wide latitude to determine exactly what information to supply, argued opponents, which would limit the effectiveness of federal programs to monitor political spending.
Two conservative Democrats -- Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, -- have made a similar proposal that allows state filing procedures, but mandates disclosure and other forms still be filed with the IRS. That bill, according to some Hill observers, has a better chance of enactment.
