FEC Reluctant to Back Staff Proposals

WASHINGTON —  The Federal Election Commission signaled Wednesday that it will overrule most, if not all, of its own staff’s recommendations that the Bill Clinton and Bob Dole presidential campaigns repay millions of dollars that they allegedly overspent in the 1996 battle for the White House.

Following two days of debate, Scott E. Thomas, the commission’s acting chairman, said: “The chances are pretty darn slim there will be any repayment.”

Later, agency sources cautioned that some repayments might be ordered as the commissioners consider specific examples of the “issue ads” that are at the heart of the controversy. But any such repayments likely would fall far short of the amount proposed by the audit division.

The commission’s reluctance to support the staff recommendations provided a demonstration of what campaign reform advocates charge are the weaknesses of Watergate-inspired regulations that sought to hold political spending in check. As the two major political parties and their candidates have found ways to get around the intent of the spending laws, the FEC and Congress have proved unwilling to toughen the regulations.

The commission is scheduled to continue mulling the proposed repayments at its meeting today.

Russell Verney, chairman of the Reform Party founded by Ross Perot, monitored the FEC’s proceedings and was discouraged by the tenor of the debate.

“Christmas came early for the Dole and Clinton campaigns,” Verney said.

The audit reports, made public last week, were an outgrowth of widely publicized allegations of funding abuses during the 1996 campaign. The reports proposed that the Dole campaign be asked to repay more than $17.7 million and the Clinton campaign more than $7 million.

Most of this represented money spent by the two national parties on commercials that supposedly sought to promote issue debate and party building. The FEC staff argued that, in reality, the ads were designed to benefit the Dole and Clinton candidacies.

In this way, the audits contended, the presidential campaigns evaded the spending limits imposed by federal law and commission regulations.

But among members of the commission, which during its more than 20 years of existence has earned a reputation among reformers for laxness and timidity, the audits stirred misgivings. On Wednesday, several commissioners expressed concern that the reasoning of the reports would unduly restrict activity by political parties.

“If we get ourselves in a position where we say the national committees can’t run issue ads, we’re going to be in a very awkward position,” warned Danny Lee McDonald, a Democrat.

Republican commissioner Lee Ann Elliott fretted that the audits relied too much on assuming the motives behind the ad campaigns and “would require us to look into the heads of people.”