Campaign finance bill headed for Senate debate

With House action stalled on a bill making wide-ranging changes in Missouri's campaign finance law, lawmakers are looking to a more narrowly drafted House-passed bill as possibly the last chance to tackle the issue this year.

Just before legislators took a 10-day break in March, the Missouri Senate voted overwhelmingly to lift the caps on campaign donations, restrict the use of local party committees as conduits for political money and require more frequent campaign reporting.

In the House, lawmakers focused on ending perceived problems with lobbying, including more detail on who is receiving gifts from lobbyists and ending the practice of allowing lobbyists to wine and dine specialized "caucuses" without naming the lawmakers receiving the largesse.

With nine days to go before lawmakers adjourn for the year, the House bill, sponsored by House Majority Leader Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, awaits Senate debate. The Senate bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Charles Shields, R-St. Joseph, hasn't received a House committee vote.

"I know there is some heartburn on the House side with Sen. Shields' bill," said Sen. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City. Scott is chairman of the Senate Financial and Governmental Organizations and Elections Committee, which sent Dempsey's bill to the Senate floor this week without changes.

Scott and a spokeswoman for Shields' office said Senate floor debate on Dempsey's bill will likely take place next week, with a conference committee working out a compromise version.

Provisions taking the limits off campaign donations and restricting the use of local party committees may be the most difficult items to sell in the House, Dempsey said Wednesday.

Contributors who donate directly to campaigns must abide by limits first established in 1994. With inflation, those limits today are $1,275 to candidates for statewide office, $650 to candidates for the state Senate and $325 to candidates for the Missouri House.

But political party committees, including once-obscure legislative district committees, may give many times those amounts. That looser restriction has led to a surge in the number of such committees and to a vast increase in the amount of money they handle.

Local political party committees gave candidates for statewide office $6 million in 2004. They have already become a conduit for large sums to both Gov. Matt Blunt and Attorney General Jay Nixon, the presumed candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties for governor in