Omnibus spending

GOP rider would boost party spending

Mitch McConnell plans to slip campaign cash rider in omnibus spending bill.

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Seung Min Kim

Senate Republicans plan to insert a provision into a must-pass government funding bill that would vastly expand the amount of cash that political parties could spend on candidates, multiple sources tell POLITICO.

The provision, which sources say is one of a few campaign-finance related riders being discussed in closed-door negotiations over a $1.15 trillion omnibus spending package, would eliminate caps on the amount of cash that parties may spend in coordination with their candidates.

Pushed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime foe of campaign finance restrictions, the coordination rider represents the latest threat to the increasingly rickety set of rules created to restrict political fundraising and spending on elections.

Campaign finance watchdogs argue that it would allow wealthy donors to exercise even more influence with members of Congress. And they cried foul over the possibility that the provision could be slipped into the omnibus spending bill that Congress is working to pass before a Dec. 11 deadline to avoid a government shutdown.

Other campaign-finance provisions being discussed during the omnibus negotiations include GOP-backed efforts to block the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission from enacting additional regulations and disclosure requirements on politically active nonprofit groups, sources say.

Proponents of the coordination rider cast it as a step toward a more accountable and transparent system of political financing. They argue it would help party committees, which are subject to strict campaign rules and reporting requirements, claw back some of the power and control that has migrated to less rigorously regulated big-money outside groups empowered by recent federal court decisions, including the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.

And McConnell’s office suggested that some Democrats also have expressed interest in doing away with the coordination limits.

“There is a bipartisan desire to have that provision done,” a McConnell spokesperson told POLITICO.

But a senior Democratic Senate aide said the party’s congressional leadership is “against it for the simple reason that it exacerbates the fundamental problem that a wealthy few are controlling our democracy.” Another Senate Democratic aide portrayed the opposition as somewhat less strident, saying, “there is not a lot of enthusiasm for that provision in the caucus.”

In fact, though, there has been some bipartisan support for other recent legislative provisions intended to boost the parties. Late last year, representatives for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and then-House Speaker John Boehner negotiated a rider that was slipped into a government spending bill that dramatically increased the amount of money a single rich donor could give to national party committees each year — from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 ― though most of the new cash can be used only for specialized purposes like recounts and building-related expenses.

That provision ― combined with McConnell’s proposal and last year’s Supreme Court ruling striking down aggregate caps on donations to parties and campaigns ― could help the party committees level the playing field with outside groups like super PACs, argued Ray La Raja, a University of Massachusetts professor who specializes in studying political parties.

“It’s good for transparency and accountability to have the parties control the money, rather than these outside groups,” said La Raja. He co-wrote a book published this year called “Campaign Finance and Political Polarization; When Purists Prevail,” contending that the explosion in unlimited spending by super PACs and other big-money groups has increased polarization in Congress. “My argument is that when the parties choose challengers, they tend to support moderates, and I think that’s a good thing for our political system,” he said.

Unlike party committees, super PACs and other big-money groups can accept unlimited cash from individual donors, corporations and unions. But outside groups are barred from coordinating their advertising spending with the candidates they’re trying to help, while party committees are allowed to spend prescribed amounts of money on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts in direct coordination with their nominees. The limits range from $48,000 for most House candidates to more than $20 million for presidential nominees.

The McConnell provision would allow the parties to engage in unlimited spending in coordination with nominees, though contributions to the party committee themselves would still be subject to annual limits of $33,000 per person.

La Raja said that would provide “a nice advantage” to the parties, although they’d still be at an overall disadvantage to unlimited-money political operations like the ones helmed by the conservative Koch brothers or the liberal Tom Steyer.

But Fred Wertheimer, president of the campaign-finance watchdog group Democracy 21, said the McConnell rider would allow politicians to steer bigger checks from their richest backers through the parties to their campaigns.

“What this provision would basically do is turn the party committees into full-time laundering operations,” he said, pointing out that earlier this year a GOP effort failed to pass a similar measure through the committee process.

“They’re using this end-game process to do what they can’t necessarily do in the legislative process,” he said.