POLITICS: A Defeat for Campaign Reform

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"It is no longer government of, for and by the people," complained Senator Walter Mondale. "It is government of, for and by those who are willing and able to pay the price." The Minnesota Democrat was pointing out a major lesson of Watergate: the corrosive power of private money in electoral campaigns, what he called "the buy-America system." The efforts of Mondale and other reform-minded legislators bogged down last week in a snarl that once again effectively killed reform of the nation's laws governing campaign financing.

The congressional tangle began late last month when the Senate, by a 57-to-34 vote, passed a measure to create federal funding for all general election campaigns down to the House level. The bill would have provided major candidates with 150 for each voter in their constituency. That would mean roughly $21 million for presidential hopefuls (compared with $60 million raised by President Nixon in 1972 and $36 million raised by George McGovern), between $175,000 and $2,000,000 for Senators, and a minimum of $90,000 for Representatives. To prevent trivial presidential candidacies, the new legislation would have required candidates to raise some money of their own for primary campaigns before they would become eligible for public funds.

In the hope of avoiding a presidential veto, the sponsors of the measure resorted to a parliamentary trick and attached it to a crucial, though unrelated bill raising the federal debt ceiling. But the maneuver only angered many in the House who were at best unenthusiastic about the legislation. At the urging of Al Ullman of Oregon, the Rules Com mittee rejected the Senate's amendment; the House then turned it down by a decisive 347 to 54 vote.

All was not yet lost, however. Leading Senators like Mondale, Edward Kennedy and Hugh Scott met with their counterparts in the House and worked out a compromise—a new amendment that would affect the financing of presidential campaigns only. It was thought to have a good chance of passing.

But the reformers had not counted on the tenacious opposition of Senator James Allen, a conservative Democrat of Alabama and master of the Senate's rules. The amendment passed the House, but when it was presented to the Senate, Allen filibustered for four days.

Administration lobbyists quickly SUPported Allen's delaying tactic. "They were all over the place," said Kenneth Davis, an aide to Senator Scott. "Their first interest was in getting the debt bill.

Their second was in killing public finance." At one point, the White House dispatched an Air Force plane to fly the two Republican Senators from Oklahoma back to Washington to vote against ending the filibuster.

Allen remained unmoved by appeals to step aside that came from the Democratic leadership, including fellow Southern Conservative Russell B. Long.