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Its not often that Democrats and the tea party end up on the same side of a debate. But a hotly contested clause in the spending bill lawmakers revealed Tuesday, which would effectively allow individuals to contribute 10 times the current limit to national parties, is creating unlikely allies.

A string of tea-party groups are protesting the clausewhich would allow national party committees to raise money for conventions, building renovations and election recounts under higher contribution limitsfor returning too much power to the Washington establishment, highlighting the rift that has emerged in the Republican Party in recent years between its conservative wing and pro-business incumbents. The 2014 election saw nearly across-the-board victories for the latter group.

David Bossie, president of Citizens Uniteda tea-party group behind the lawsuit that resulted in the Supreme Court striking down decades-old limits on corporate political expendituressaid in a statement, What congressional leaders are doing is what they do best: protecting incumbents and the two-party system. The Omnibus rider will only strengthen the Washington Establishment in both parties and not create a level playing field for candidates who are outside the beltway. He called for the limits on contributions to PACs to be raised.

Mr. Bossie also criticized House and Senate Republicans campaign arms for making clear their mission is reelecting their own. Those groups, particularly the National Republican Senatorial Committee, were heavily involved in GOP primary battles in the 2014 cycle, backing incumbents against conservative challengers.

Ken Cuccinelli, president of the tea-party group Senate Conservatives Fund and former attorney general of Virginia, offered similar criticism. The new limits included in the omnibus only increase political speech for party insiders while silencing the majority of Americans who are fed up with Washington, he said. The First Amendment wasnt written to protect political insiders from the American people it was written to protect the rights of all Americans.

Club for Growth, another group in the GOPs conservative wing, put out a statement Wednesday urging lawmakers to vote against the spending bill. Among many reasons the group cited for its opposition was that the bill provides a fix for these jonesing politicians who carry water for their special interest buddies.

Matt Kibbe, president of the conservative FreedomWorks, called for contribution limits to be raised or eliminated across the board, not selectively applied for political purposes. He added: All individuals deserve to have their voices heard in the political process, not just the countrys major parties.

Democrats and watchdog groups have attacked the provision for allowing wealthy donors another avenue to influence politics, and several lawmakers pledged not to vote for the spending bill if the clauseand another scaling back regulatory language in the Dodd-Frank lawwere not taken out. The legislation narrowly passed a procedural vote to take up the bill in the House Thursday afternoon 214-212. House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Wednesday that the clause was inserted with bipartisan support.

Few Republican lawmakers have come out against the provision, though the bill has already lost some support from conservatives who say it does too little to push back against President Barack Obamas plans to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation.

One tea-party group voiced its support of the provision: Tea Party Patriots, whose co-founder Jenny Beth Martin praised the move away from using taxpayer dollars to fund presidential conventions. If the political parties want to raise funds from major donors to be able to fund the conventions themselves, it seems to be a step in the right direction of removing another burden from the American taxpayer, she said. But she criticized the spending bill as a whole, calling it a massive, pork laden, amnesty promoting, thousand plus page bill that no one in Congress has read before voting on.

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Tea Party Angered by Fundraising Change in Spending Bill