It appears that the Senate, as reported in the N & O, “may roll many of the [ethics] reform bills into one bill for a vote. The House would then have to concur.”
If
this means that some of the attacks on political speech are rolled into
the bill, like the excessive regulation of 527s, total bans on lobbyist
contributions, more public financing of elections, etc, then any
responsible legislator would have to vote down all of the ethics
reforms. Of course, this may be the intent of rolling the reforms
into one bill–include enough bad provisions (i.e. poison pills) and
nothing will get done.
These reforms, by their nature, need to be addressed one at a
time–we should know, on the record, who is for real reform and who is
for entrenching their own power at the expense of violating the First
Amendment. Warning to legislators: Be careful of “reforms” buried
in unrelated bills, like technical corrections bills.
