United States Politics

The House on Tuesday opened a freewheeling debate on money in politics, with Republican leaders beseeching about two dozen undecided GOP lawmakers to help derail a proposal to limit large donations from unions, corporations and wealthy individuals. The leaders, claiming that GOP control of the House could be at stake, today will try to amend a bill that would ban the unlimited donations to national political parties that are known as soft money.

Three political fund-raising scandals. Two maverick presidential campaigns. One White House veto. And more than a decade of frustration, reversals and dashed hopes. That's what it has taken for supporters of campaign finance reform to reach a House vote expected today that may constitute their best chance yet to force their vision into law. In their decade-plus of struggle, reformers have been compelled to ruthlessly narrow their aims.

As the House battle on campaign finance reform legislation starts today, frantic Republican leaders are warning their troops that the future strength of the GOP is at risk if the bill passes. But a key party warrior has been missing from the battlefield: President Bush, who has been keeping a low profile in the House's pivotal debate on limiting special-interest contributions to politics.

Let the spending spree begin. Congress received President Bush's budget Monday in a political and fiscal climate that has precious few incentives for lawmakers to exercise fiscal discipline. It is an election year. War and recession have loosened purse strings. And even Bush is saying other matters now are more important than keeping the government in the black. That's a big departure from the trend of the last two decades.

Big tax cuts. Big increases in defense spending. And the return of federal budget deficits that squeeze the rest of government. Suddenly the battle over the budget that President Bush will release Monday is beginning to look a lot like the 1980s.

Former Vice President Al Gore criticized President Bush's handling of the economy in a speech Saturday night that marked what he called a return to "the national debate." "It is now clear that our nation's economic policy is simply not working, especially for those who most depend on its success," Gore said before about 1,600 people at a Tennessee Democratic Party fund-raiser.

It seemed like a productive day for Elizabeth Hanford Dole. She was in Houston last September for a speech, and an influential supporter pulled together a luncheon fund-raiser at a snazzy hotel for Dole's U.S. Senate campaign in North Carolina. Dole, the race's likely Republican nominee, went home with a tidy $20,000. But now she's paying an unexpected political price. The host of that fund-raiser was Kenneth L. Lay, then-chairman of the still-solvent Enron Corp.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative agency of Congress, announced Wednesday that it would sue the White House for refusing to reveal the inner workings of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, foreshadowing a high-stakes constitutional battle laced with political overtones.

Faced with growing legal and political challenges, Vice President Dick Cheney stepped forward Sunday to vigorously defend the administration's handling of the collapse of Enron Corp.--and his own refusal to release details of his meetings with Enron and other industry executives in formulating the Bush administration's energy policy. Cheney's defiance puts the administration on course for a legal clash with Congress' investigative arm, the nonpartisan General Accounting Office.

When the Bush administration decided this month to grant Gov. Gray Davis' request to expand health insurance benefits to the poor, its first call was not to Davis but to his No. 1 Republican rival, gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan. A top aide to Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson called Riordan's campaign office a week before the announcement of a state and federal effort to begin offering health coverage to 300,000 uninsured Californians.