WASHINGTON - With a raucous start, the Senate began debate yesterday on whether and how to stem the flow of big money into federal campaigns, amid expectations that some rules will be changed for the first time in a quarter-century.
Barely winning a first test vote, Sens. John McCain and Russell D. Feingold held together a tenuous bipartisan group of senators who want to ban unrestricted "soft money" gifts to political parties, which they say circumvent limits on donations to candidates.
"It's time to end business as usual," McCain said.
Arrayed in opposition were Republican Senate leaders, loosely backed by President Bush, who would prefer to raise the limits on direct donations to candidates.
"We're having a jump ball, and let the games begin," said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on the first day of what is expected to be two weeks of debate on the long-stalled proposal to overhaul the campaign finance system.
The outcome remains uncertain, in part because some Democrats who were originally believed to be supporters of the McCain-Feingold bill are now wavering.
On the first vote of sentiment, the Senate narrowly defeated a proposal to raise the limits on direct contributions to candidates who face contenders wealthy enough to spend unlimited sums of their own money.
McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, said they feared that this proposal would prove unworkable. They had to persuade three colleagues - including Sen. Jon Corzine, a New Jersey Democrat who spent $60 million of his own money to win his seat last year - to switch their votes and produce the 51-48 tally against the amendment. McCain agreed to consider a modified form of the so-called "millionaires" amendment that is expected to be offered today.
"I'm not sure that first vote said anything" about where the legislation is headed, "except that we're in for a long, hard two weeks," said Sen. Susan M. Collins, a Maine Republican who supports the McCain-Feingold measure but was tempted to vote against it in protest of the rigid rules set for debate.
McCain, who rode the momentum from his popular but unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign to force an early vote on his signature issue, opened yesterday's debate with a plea to senators to make a serious effort to compromise and not undermine the effort to reduce the influence of big donors in Washington.
