fter being grilled by lawmakers at a State House hearing yesterday, supporters of a voter-backed Clean Elections law said they were treated rudely and that House leaders are secretly preparing yet another assault on the law this summer.
Several members of the House Committee on Election Laws, including chairman Antonio Cabral (D-New Bedford), were clearly skeptical of the law, which provides public funds to candidates who agree to spending and contribution limits.
Cabral and others sharply quizzed some citizens in an attempt to show an incomplete understanding of the measure's provisions.
''When you voted for this, were you familiar with how it would work?'' Cabral asked Annette Jacobsen, a Wayland resident who appeared shaken by the aggressive questioning.
The often-confrontational hearing underscored reform advocates' belief that legislators are determined to rewrite the sweeping campaign finance reform law passed by voter referendum in 1998.
The law's backers fear any number of possible changes to the law, including revisions that could drastically limit its scope or loopholes in spending and contribution limits that would render it meaningless.
The hearing yesterday came as the McCormack Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts released survey results showing strong public support for campaign finance reform, but little understanding of the Clean Elections law and only modest support for public financing of campaigns.
The hearing was the first of three scheduled by the House Committee on Election Laws, ostensibly on a bill making minor ''technical corrections'' to the Clean Elections measure. House leaders say they want to give the law's supporters a chance to offer input on any proposed changes.
But the law's backers angrily portrayed the hearings as a kangaroo court that will be used to justify major changes in the law.
''This forum was set up to provide window dressing for wholesale revisions of what the voters have passed,'' said Representative Jay Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat.
''They're about to gut campaign finance reform, and this is unfortunately a ruse to say, `We've had public hearings on this bill and therefore we can do whatever we want,''' said former state senator Warren Tolman, who testified in support of the measure yesterday.
Supporters of the law said they are concerned that private budget negotiations between House and Senate leaders might produce a rewrite of the Clean Elections law. Both House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham are known to be deeply skeptical of the law. Last year they used their budget talks to craft major and unexpected changes to the measure. Those changes were vetoed by Governor Paul Cellucci.
This year's budget negotiators are already considering a House-approved budget amendment that would delay the law's implementation until the Legislature approved a special report on the new system's cost.
Backers of the law noted that yesterday's hearing barely focused on the technical corrections bill, a fine-tuning measure crafted by the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance and endorsed by Clean Elections backers.
Instead, the hearing became a forum in which several citizens urged the Legislature not to make broader changes to the Clean Elections law. In response, committee members questioned some speakers on their understanding of the proposed system.
Boston resident James Weliky said while testifying that he found Cabral's questioning ''disrespectful,'' and said Cabral was trying to ''trip me up by asking me questions that I, as an ordinary citizen, do not have answers to.''
After the hearing Cabral said he had not intended to be rude, but added that citizens who testify on Beacon Hill should be prepared for thorough questioning from lawmakers.
Cabral would not rule out the possibility of a major rewrite of the law, saying he believes the ''will of the voters'' amounts to a generalized call for public financing of campaigns, and limits on ''soft-money'' contributions and campaign contributions.
Meanwhile, the UMass poll found that while 60 percent of those surveyed knew nothing about the Clean Elections law, 78 percent said it was very important or somewhat important to reform the financing of campaigns.
However, only 58 percent said they either strongly supported or somewhat supported the idea of public financing.
