US President George W. Bush quietly signed what he called a flawed law to reform political fund-raising today and then set off on a blitz to raise $3.5 million for fellow Republicans.
The president signed the law without fanfare in the Oval Office, reflecting his misgivings about the measure which bans unlimited contributions known as "soft money" to national political parties in the largest overhaul of US campaign finance laws in a quarter century.
Mr Bush told reporters the law improved the system despite his misgivings, saying he would have preferred legislation that protected union members and company shareholders from having their funds spent on politics without their consent.
The president also said that he saw no irony is signing the bill and then collecting political cash for Republican US Senate candidates in South Carolina, Georgia and Texas in an aggressive two-day fund-raising swing through the South.
"I'm not going to lay down my arms," Mr Bush said, saying he would abide by the rules of the new law, which does not go into effect until the day after the Nov. 5 election in which he hopes to wrest control of the Senate from the Democrats.
"These Senate races are very important for me. I want the Republicans to take control of the Senate," he bluntly told reporters. "These are the rules and that's why I am going to campaign for like-minded people."
The law, passed after a seven-year struggle in Congress, bans unlimited "soft money" to national political parties. In recent years, the Democratic and Republican national parties have each raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in "soft money."
In addition, the law sharply limits such contributions to state and local political parties, restricts broadcast ads by outside groups shortly before elections and doubles to $2,000 the amount of highly regulated "hard money" contributions to individual congressional and presidential candidates.