House takes aim at public funding of elections

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to eliminate public financing of presidential campaigns, calling the four-decade-old program obsolete and wasteful.

On a largely symbolic 239-160 vote, House members said taxpayers should not pay for campaigns when government deficits are growing. The bill would apply the savings -- estimated by nonpartisan budget analysts at $617 million over 10 years -- to reduce the deficit.

But the measure, which drew support from 10 House Democrats, is opposed by President Barack Obama and faces almost certain doom in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Two Senate Democratic leadership aides said they did not expect the House-passed bill to get a vote in the Senate, where Democrats support the public financing program.

The system, established in the 1970s after the Watergate scandal in an effort to reduce the influence of unregulated private donations in politics, allows taxpayers to check off a box on their tax forms to donate $3 to the fund.

Presidential contenders can accept federal campaign funds if they meet certain requirements and agree to spending limits. In the general election, candidates get a lump sum if they agree to forgo private fundraising -- $84 million in 2008.

But taxpayer participation has steadily declined in recent years -- from a high of nearly 29 percent to 7 percent in 2009 -- and Obama bypassed the system in 2008 to set new fundraising and spending records with the support of private donors.

Republican 2008 presidential candidate John McCain accepted public funds in the general election.

Republicans said they targeted the public funding program as part of their drive to rein in the growing federal deficit, which passed $1.4 trillion this year.

The Republican sponsor, Representative Tom Cole, said the fund was "a prime example of an outdated, wasteful Washington program that taxpayers want eliminated."

The Republican effort followed last year's Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which removed restrictions on corporate and union spending. That ruling enraged Democrats, who said the House vote was another effort to open the floodgates for special interest money in politics.

"This is an attempt to finish the job that the Supreme Court started with the Citizens United decision," Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said of the House bill.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he would introduce a companion bill in the Senate, but Democrats vowed to block the effort.

"This could be one of several bills passed by the House that isn't brought before the Senate," a Democratic aide said.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro; editing by Stacey Joyce)