Washington — As they break from their battle to restrain the influence of big money in politics, senators are barnstorming the country this weekend to collect the very kind of big-check contributions they might soon vote to render illegal.
Tonight in a hillside enclave overlooking Beverly Hills, a dozen Democratic senators supporting the reform movement expect to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars at an exclusive dinner in the mansion of billionaire television executive Haim Saban.
The event is just one stop on a whirlwind, four-city tour for Democratic leaders this weekend, and yet another cha-ching! of the congressional cash register that has kept ringing right through this week's Senate debate on campaign finance reform.
To critics and even some contributors such full-speed-ahead fund raising underscores the flaws that the reform legislation aims to fix.
"It tells us how perverted and flawed the system is for financing our elections," said Andy Spahn, an executive at Dreamworks SKG, whose partners Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen have raised millions of dollars for Democrats. Politicians, Spahn said, have "to raise money almost every day in order to have any realistic chance" to remain in office.
Indeed, many of the lawmakers involved in this weekend's scramble say they have no choice.
Raising money "is the worst part of what I do," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., one of the senators scheduled to attend tonight's event. "But we have to play by the rules of the game. Until they change, I will."
For the first time in a generation, such change may be in the offing, as the Senate on Monday resumes its deliberations on a reform bill proposed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis. The measure's central feature would ban so-called soft money contributions the unlimited funds that parties collect from corporations, labor unions and other well-heeled donors.
Meant to pay for general party operations, the money increasingly is used to pay for television ads that all but endorse individual candidates. And soft money donations are among the contributions the Democratic senators are seeking at this weekend's events.
McCain and Feingold appeared to hold their fragile coalition of supporters together last week, fending off a series of amendments that might have threatened passage of their bill.
But McCain acknowledged Friday that much thornier issues loom next week: expected amendments that would set a ceiling on soft money instead of banning it, raise limits on direct contributions to candidates and toss the entire reform measure out if even a portion of it is overturned by courts.
The Senate's free-wheeling debate has called attention to a corner of political life that candidates usually prefer to shield from the public. But it hasn't prompted members to ease up on their fund-raising schedules.
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