Amendment

Harry Reid backs campaign spending amendment

By BURGESS EVERETT 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wholeheartedly endorsed a constitutional amendment to limit campaign spending on Thursday, putting the Senate on course to vote on the matter as early as July.

Reid said that the Senate Judiciary Committee will take up the amendment on June 3, which allows Congress and the states to limit fundraising and spending on federal campaigns and gives lawmakers the ability to regulate outside groups. From there, the amendment will go to the Senate floor, where it has little chance of passing due to broad GOP opposition to meddling with campaign finance laws.

But Democrats believe the failed vote on the amendment, which needs the backing of 67 senators, will still pay dividends in the run-up to the midterm elections, painting Republicans as supporters of big money in politics and Democrats as on the side of ordinary voters.

“Let me pose a question to everyone, including my friend the Republican Leader [Mitch McConnell]. If this unprecedented spending is free speech, where does that leave our middle-class constituents? The poor?” Reid said Thursday morning. “It leaves them out in the cold. How could everyday working families afford to make their voices heard if money equals free speech?”

Republicans quickly rebutted Reid, accusing him of moving to limit Americans’ First Amendment rights.

“Today’s proposal by the Senate Majority Leader represents an all-out assault on the right to free speech, a right which undergirds all others in our democracy. It’s also a clear sign of just how desperate elected Washington Democrats have become in their quest to hold onto power,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“Washington Democrats have shown again and again how determined they are to shut down the voices of anyone who disagrees with them, whether it’s targeting groups through the IRS or looking over the shoulders of reporters at local newspapers and on news radio. But this latest proposal goes beyond everything they’ve attempted previously.”

Even John McCain, a previous supporter of campaign finance reform, said in an interview that he will vote against the amendment, calling it as “exercise in hypocrisy” for Democrats.

The GOP is quick to point out that wealthy liberals like Tom Steyer are backing Democrats’ goal of keeping the Senate, but Senate Democrats believe public opinion is on their side, laying the groundwork for a national messaging campaign based on opposing big money for months. Reid has ripped the influence of conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, on Thursday asserting that the Kochs now represent the “mainstream” of the GOP.

Democratic leaders have also recruited influential allies for their fight against big money in politics, bringing Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens to a recent hearing on their constitutional amendment.

“Justice Stevens rightly labeled these massive campaign contributors as ‘nonvoters,’” Reid said. “Behind these nonvoting organizations are massively wealthy men hoping for a big monetary return on their political donations. Then the candidates they bankroll get into office, the winners inevitably begin to legislate their sponsor’s business plans.”