Campaign Finance Reform: The House Buckles Down

Serious campaign finance reform triumphed in the Senate, and now the House is poised to begin heated debate over two divergent bills. (One, sponsored by Reps. Christopher Shays and Martin Meehan, looks a lot like the victorious McCain-Feingold, while the other, sponsored by Rep. Robert Ney, and favored by the G.O.P., leaves a lot of contributory loopholes wide open.)

The House is expected to vote later this week, and since the President is likely to sign whatever bill Congress sends him, the pressure (and the lure of political payoff) is especially intense.

Where does the debate stand now? TIME congressional correspondent Douglas Waller, who is following the ongoing campaign finance reform saga, spoke with TIME.com Tuesday.

TIME.com: Where are we today on campaign finance reform?

Douglas Waller: Both sides in the House have decided to speed up the debate and the voting process. At the moment it looks like the House will vote on Thursday.

Why the sudden sense of urgency?

At this point, both sides think its in the best interest to move to a quick vote. On the Democrats side, supporters of the Shays-Meehan bill (which lines up with McCains Senate version and bans all unregulated soft-money contributions to national parties) are afraid their coalition will fracture more the longer the issue is out there. There are lot of people within their own coalition (the Congressional Black Caucus and organized labor, for example) who are nervous about the Democrats bill because they fear the restrictions on soft money will go too far in blunting outreach and campaigning.

On the GOP side, represented by the Ney bill (which is supported by the White House and puts soft-money caps at $75,000 per individual) the feeling is that they should try to go for a quick win. And if they cant get a quick win, they should take a quick loss. They dont want to be on the floor for weeks, taking a beating from the Democrats.

Some reports out of Washington today paint a pretty grim picture for the Democrats version of the bill. Do you have a prediction of how the vote will go?

Right now its just too close to call. Its hard to say which side has the votes right now. If I had to bet, and I wouldnt advise anyone to bet along with me, Id say Shays-Meehan will prevail in the end.

This has really become a touchstone issue for both parties in the past couple of weeks.

Oh, absolutely. The leadership on both sides are really whipping this thing up. Its sort of a test of leadership on both sides: For Gephardt, this has potential to really vault him into the national spotlight — and position him for a White House run, if thats what he wants.

For Republicans, there are big bucks at stake: Youve got a fund-raiser in the White House whos even better at raising money than Bill Clinton was. So if these restrictions go through, youre slamming the door on a whole lot of cash.