Kenneth Starr to lead legal team challenging campaign finance legislation

Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater independent counsel, will lead the court challenge seeking to overturn large parts of the campaign finance bill passed by Congress.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, expected to be the lead plaintiff in the case, said Thursday that his legal team would be led by Starr, who gained national prominence in his pursuit of former President Clinton over the Whitewater land deal and the Monica Lewinsky case, and by First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams.

"This is a mission to preserve the fundamental constitutional freedom of all Americans to fully participate in our democracy," said McConnell, R-Ky.

The Senate on Wednesday passed and sent to President Bush the most far-reaching campaign finance legislation in the past quarter-century. It bans the hundreds of millions of dollars in unregulated "soft money" that corporations, unions and individuals give the national political parties and restricts in the final days before an election the use of soft money for "issue ads" that name a candidate, often with the purpose of attacking him.