Posted on: Monday, February 18, 2002

EDITORIAL
Scandal prompts campaign reform

It was worth the grueling 17 hours of tense and sometimes arcane parliamentary maneuvering las week as the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved a sweeping overhaul of campaign finance laws.

The final Shays-Meehan bill, which would curb unlimited "soft money"contributions, survived a whole series of votes on amendments, most of which were intended to "poison" it into unpalatability.

Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio, were singularly cynical in their attempts to defeat the reform. They introduced bills that actually were considerably tougher on soft money than Shays-Meehan. In actuality, these men, bitter enemies of soft-money reform, knew that if their bills won passage, they were so different from the Senate's companion McCain-Feingold bill, passed last year, that the issue would be forced to a House-Senate conference committee, where it could be argued to death.

Final passage was in large part due to the mushrooming Enron. President Bush, like many lawmakers, was sensitive to a public aware of their receipt of large amounts of Enron largess. It now appears the Senate will quickly accept the House version and Bush will sign it into law.

One amendment to the House bill makes it take effect after the coming election. While to some that may appear to weaken it, it also prevents an accounting nightmare, since the campaign cycle is already under way.

Hawai'i Reps. Patsy Mink and Neil Abercrombie did the right thing in voting to pass the reform.

Big-money politics won't go a way as a result of this bill. But campaigns will be better and fairer.