As a Supreme Court decision that could weaken campaign finance laws looms, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said that a ruling giving an upper hand to corporations and labor unions could be the catalyst needed to pass election-reform legislation.

 

He and Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., spoke at a Center for American Progress event on Friday to promote their legislation, the Fair Elections Now Act, and discuss the impact of the pending decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision could open the door for unrestricted spending on campaign advertising.

 

"It takes a major scandal to create a major reform," Durbin said. "I don't know that we've reached the level in the Senate or in the nation where people are going to demand this of us.... But if they think that the Supreme Court has tipped the scales so dramatically that they don't have a fighting chance any more, they may be open to this."

 

FENA would put in place a public financing system, driven by small-donor contributions, that would cost the government, by Durbin's estimate, $186 million and would be subsidized by a surtax on federal government contractors (with a $500,000 ceiling per contractor).

In the House, the bill has almost 120 cosponsors. "The best place that I go to enlist people for this program is down to the DCCC as they're dialing for dollars," Larson said.

 

But on the Senate side, wealthier candidates and incumbents who are convinced that they have a winning formula will resist reform, Durbin said. What's more, he continued, finding the time to debate the bill will be a challenge given the Senate's busy docket.

 

As such, the discussion inevitably turned to the influence of special interests in the debate that has recently dominated both chambers -- health care. Durbin's remarks on this issue, as well as his explanation of how his proposed financing system would work, can be watched after the jump.