Thursday, March 30, 2006 · Last updated 3:48 p.m. PT
House may limit nonprofit campaign funds
By JIM ABRAMS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The House next week will take up a bill to constrict the money-raising ability of nonprofit political groups that emerged as a substantial force in the 2004 presidential election.
The bill to require groups known as 527s to register as political committees and abide by contribution limits is likely to meet resistance from Democrats, who in 2004 relied on 527s as a key source of financing.
"I will strongly oppose it," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.
The decision by GOP leaders to bring up the 527 bill separately could make it easier for the House and Senate to reach a compromise on lobbying and ethics legislation working its way through Congress.
The Senate on Wednesday led the response to recent lobbying scandals by passing legislation that would ban lobbyists from giving gifts and meals to lawmakers and require lobbyists to disclose more about their contacts with legislators. Lawmakers would have to get approval before taking privately funded trips and file reports when they travel on private corporate jets.
Senators from both parties warned against complicating the lobbying bill by combining it with controversial campaign finance issues, including that of 527s, but House GOP leaders have backed making that part of their package.
House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., said that could still happen. "We're still trying to determine how at the end of the day we will put this together."
On Wednesday a U.S. District judge ruled, in a case brought by President Bush's campaign and lawmakers, that the Federal Election Commission had failed to give a reasoned explanation for its decision not to issue rules requiring 527s - named after the section of the tax code that covers them - to register as federal political action committees. That would subject them to the same fundraising, spending and disclosure rules as PACs must follow.
The judge did not say that the FEC had abused its discretion, and he did not order it to develop rules for their fundraising and spending. However, he told the commission to "articulate its reasoning" or write a rule for the groups "if necessary."
The House bill is expected to be based on legislation offered by Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Marty Meehan, D-Mass., partners in sponsoring the 2002 campaign finance act that banned national party committees and federal candidates from raising unlimited corporate and union donations.
Shays, who disagreed with most of his Republican colleagues in backing the 2002 act, criticized Pelosi and other Democrats who oppose his 527 bill. "There's no defense for saying you are for campaign finance reform and then not voting to close a loophole, except blatant partisan politics."
The Shays-Meehan bill would limit to $5,000 per year what an individual can give to a federal political committee to influence federal elections. The ceiling is $25,000 for nonfederal funds to pay for voter mobilization and public communication activities.
House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, at a news conference Thursday, said nonprofit group spending had become "a gaping loophole" in the law. "To have all of this unregulated campaign cash going to these organizations and allowing them to engage in campaign activities without any disclosure is wrong," he said.
The nonpartisan Political Money Line, a campaign finance tracking service, found that in the 2004 election groups supporting Sen. John Kerry or opposing President Bush raised $266 million, including multimillion-dollar donations from wealthy businessmen such as George Soros. Anti-Kerry, pro-Bush groups, most prominently the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that questioned Kerry's Vietnam war record, raised $144 million.
Pelosi said it was "the height of hypocrisy" that the Republicans were trying to limit 527s but were not restricting trade associations and other business groups exempt from some rules applying to political committees.
"If they are going to do it, just do it across the board," she said.
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