House Democrats schedule Friday vote on campaign finance legislation

House Democrats have scheduled a vote on their campaign finance bill for Friday after widening a disclosure exemption originally granted for the National Rifle Association.

The legislation, known as the Disclose Act, is a response to the January Supreme Court ruling that overturned limits on corporate and union spending on political campaigns. Part of the bill would require advocacy groups to disclose their donor rolls, but authors of the legislation crafted an exemption for the powerful NRA, which had threatened to oppose the bill.

The provision exempted groups that have more than 1 million members, have existed for more than 10 years and collect no more than 15 percent of their contributions from corporations. Only the NRA and two other groups would qualify.

After protests from House liberals, Democrats widened the exemption to include groups with 500,000 members.

House Republicans oppose the bill, and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) criticized the NRA's exemption deal with Democrats.

"Well, you know when you lay down with the dogs, you're likely to get up with fleas," he said, when asked about it at his Thursday press conference.

Boehner did not elaborate on that analogy but an aide said the leader meant that when one works with Democrats on this bill, not much good will come of it.

Advocates supporting the bill have pushed for speedy action so that the legislation can be implemented in time for the fall campaign. Yet it faces uncertain prospects in the Senate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) criticized the NRA exemption, and the bill lacks a GOP co-sponsor in the Senate.

The larger exemption has not satisfied two key advocacy groups that came out against the bill after the NRA deal was revealed.

The Sierra Club said it remained opposed to the legislation even though it would now qualify for the exemption. “Many of our allies would experience the additional disclosure burdens that we would not and we still that feel a two-tiered system is unfair and undemocratic,” a spokesman for the environmental group, David Willett, said.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group also panned the new carve-out. “Our view is it’s no different,” research advocate Lisa Gilbert said. “The bulk of the bill is great reform, but widening the loophole is not a good thing.”

— Molly K. Hooper contributed to this article. 

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