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Friends,
Who was it who said that Democracy is a verb?
You can't sit down for a minute these days!
A rider to a U.S. Senate bill would, if passed, make a mockery of the
Senate's past efforts on Campaign Finance Reform.
Friend John Parker sent along an alert that just came out a few minutes ago from the League of Women Voters. I pasted it below and hope you will take a minute to click on the link to give your Senators a rattle.
Love,
Doris
http://capwiz.com/lwv/issues/alert/?alertid=8019476ACTION ALERT: STOP A NEW CAMPAIGN FINANCE LOOPHOLE
September 14, 2005
Senate leaders have slipped a new fundraising loophole into the
Transportation, Treasury, HUD and General Government Appropriations bill that is expected on the floor of the Senate this week, the week of September 14.
Please contact your Senators immediately and urge them to vote for an
amendment by Senators John McCain (R AZ) and Russ Feingold (D WI) to
remove the Leadership PAC rider from the bill. Enter your zip code above to take action now!
The rider would allow Leadership Political Action Committees (PACs)
controlled by Members of Congress to transfer an unlimited amount of their funds (instead of the current $15,000 annual limit) to national party committees, which could then spend the funds on the Members’ campaigns. In so doing, the rider would open a new loophole, evading the limits that were enacted by Congress to protect citizens against corruption and the appearance of corruption in government.
The loophole-opening rider is explicitly written so that it is
available to congressional incumbents only, thereby providing an enormous and
discriminatory financial advantage for congressional incumbents over
their challengers.
The rider would not only greatly increase the influence of big-money
contributors with Senators and Representatives and provide a huge unfair advantage for incumbents; it also has absolutely no place as part of an appropriations bill and would set an extremely dangerous precedent for all kinds of additional back-door riders to be added to other appropriations bills to unravel campaign finance laws.
At a time when the suffering of millions of Americans needs to be
alleviated, the Senate should not be focusing its attention on increasing by eight-fold the amount that congressional incumbents – and not their challengers – can raise to support their campaigns.
Take action today to repeal this rider that would undo campaign finance reforms!
ACTION NEEDED
1. Contact your Senators now, by phone and by email, and urge them to
vote for the McCain-Feingold amendment to strip the loophole-opening
Leadership PAC rider from the Senate Transportation Appropriations bill. Phone calls can be made through the Capitol Hill switchboard at
202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121. Or, go to the League of Women Voters website and send them an electronic message:
http://capwiz.com/lwv/issues/alert/?alertid=80194762. Send this email alert to other concerned citizens—your grassroots
network, your friends and coworkers. Encourage them to contact their
Senators today!
BACKGROUND
Under existing laws, Members of Congress are required to have separate campaign committees to pay for their re-election activities and cannot legally spend any of their Leadership PAC funds on their own campaigns. This rule ensures that limits on contributions to a Member’s campaign cannot be circumvented by giving additional contributions through the Member’s Leadership PAC to support the Member’s campaign. (Leadership PAC funds are typically used to fund travel or to make contributions to other Members’ campaigns.)
For example, under existing laws, an individual can give a Senator
$2,100 for his primary election and $2,100 for his general election, or a total of $4,200 to support the Senator’s own campaign. The same
individual also can give $5,000 each year, or $30,000 over the Senator’s six-year term, to the Senator’s Leadership PAC. But these Leadership PAC funds cannot be spent on the Senator’s campaign.
If the Leadership PAC funds could be legally used to support the
Senator’s campaign, this would mean that an individual could provide a total of $34,200 to support the Senator’s campaign – $30,000 to the
Leadership PAC and $4,200 to the campaign committee – or more than eight times the $4,200 maximum individual contribution allowed for a federal candidate’s campaign.
The rider attached to the Senate Transportation Appropriations bill
would license a major circumvention of the contribution limits by allowing a Senator’s Leadership PAC funds to be sent to the Senator’s party committee and then spent by the party committee on the Senator’s campaign. And since the rider defines a Leadership PAC as a PAC established by a federal officeholder, this scheme to circumvent the contribution limits would be available only to congressional incumbents.
If the Leadership PAC rider were enacted, we would end up with races
where the Senate incumbent had an individual contribution limit of
$34,200 for his re-election campaign, while the challenger had a limit of $4,200. – an enormous and discriminatory advantage for incumbents over their challengers. In effect, a congressional incumbent would be allowed to have two separate committees to finance his or her campaign, with separate contribution limits for each committee, while a challenger would have one committee with one set of contribution limits.
The same problem would exist regarding PAC contributions to federal
candidates. Under current law, a PAC can give $5,000 for a Senator’s
primary race and $5,000 for the general election race, or a total of $10,000 to support a Senator’s campaign. The same PAC can give $5,000 per year, or $30,000 over six years, to the Senator’s Leadership PAC. If an unlimited amount of a Senator’s Leadership PAC funds can be given to a party committee and then spent by the party committee on the Senator’s campaign, this means a PAC could provide a total of $40,000, instead of $10,000, to support a Senator’s campaign. The Senator’s challenger, meanwhile, would be limited to raising a total of $10,000 from a PAC for the challenger’s campaign.
http://capwiz.com/lwv/issues/alert/?alertid=8019476----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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