10/15/99- Updated 10:58 AM ET

 

Opponents challenge McCain: Name names

By JIM DRINKARD, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Senate opponents of limiting money in politics injected a bitter personal note into the debate as reformers began an uphill quest to change a system they say has corrupted American government.

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Within moments of taking up campaign-finance reform Thursday, the Senate floor became the stage for a series of rare personal attacks and recriminations among majority Republicans.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the legislation's chief opponent, challenged reform advocate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to name Senate colleagues who have been corrupted by high-dollar political contributions.

''How can there be corruption if no one is corrupt?'' McConnell asked, zeroing in on McCain's frequent speeches about the issue in his presidential campaign. ''That's like saying the gang is corrupt but none of the gangsters are.''

When McCain refused to name names, Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, confronted him. Standing just eight feet from him on the Republican side of the chamber, Bennett charged that McCain had accused him of corruption in seeking pork-barrel spending for his home state.

''I am unaware of any money given that influenced my action here,'' Bennett said. ''I have been accused of being corrupt. ... I take personal offense.''

McCain, who has made fighting special-interest spending a crusade, said Bennett was guilty only of violating Senate rules that are supposed to govern how spending bills are written.

Turning the attack on McConnell, McCain recalled he had been present at a private GOP luncheon last year when ''a certain senator stood up and said it's OK to vote against the tobacco bill because the tobacco companies will run ads in our favor.''

''I'm trying to change the system that corrupts all of us, and there is ample evidence,'' McCain said.

The bill pushed by McCain and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., would ban ''soft money,'' unlimited contributions that corporations, labor unions and individuals make to political parties. Such donations fall outside federal restrictions because they technically are not supposed to be used to help individual candidates in federal elections.

McConnell says such contributions amount to constitutionally protected political speech.

Thursday's bitterness did not bode well for the reform bill, scheduled to come to a final vote next week.

There was no sign that reformers would be able to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican obstruction tactics that have proven deadly to the bill.

Last year, McCain's forces were able to muster just 52 votes for a more comprehensive version of their bill.

McCain and Feingold scaled the measure back this year in hopes of picking up additional Republican support, but so far only Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has announced he is switching sides to vote for it.

Last month, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed its version of campaign-finance reform.