NO FAIR, democrats get unlimited funding to counter Bush lies and fairy tales with THE TRUTH: FEC Rejects Limits on 'Soft Money' Groups
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By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Federal officials Thursday rejected new limits for political groups pouring millions into ads and voter drives in the presidential election, and Republicans predicted the decision would prompt a surge in big donations for their side.
Several Democratic groups have already begun spending large donations on efforts critical of President Bush (news - web sites) or supportive of Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites). Republicans had asked the Federal Election Commission (news - web sites) to stop the activities under the campaign law that broadly banned from federal elections the big checks known as "soft money."
But four of the six FEC members on Thursday refused to step in, tabling the issue for at least three months. Even if the commission acts then, it is unlikely any new rules would affect the November presidential and congressional elections.
David Keating, executive director of the conservative, anti-tax group Club for Growth, said the FEC's decision in essence tells major GOP contributors "come on in, the water's fine."
"I think that will reassure a lot of the donors that have been hesitant to donate to the types of advertising campaigns the club is launching this weekend on Bush and Kerry's policies," said Keating, whose group supports many Bush policies and opposes many of Kerry's.
Jim Jordan, a spokesman for three pro-Democratic groups targeted by Republican complaints, said he was pleased with the FEC decision and wasn't worried about a possible surge in soft money by GOP-leaning groups.
"Republicans were always going to be lavishly funded, regardless of how they ultimately decide to funnel that money," said Jordan, spokesman for America Coming Together, America Votes and Media Fund.
Democratic commissioner Scott Thomas, who joined Republican Michael Toner to favor fund-raising and spending limits for such groups, predicted the decision would allow both Republicans and Democrats to engage in no-holds-barred spending this election year. He predicted pro-Republican groups, who have held back pending the FEC decision, would quickly surpass the Democrats.
"I think it is possible the Democrats could wind up, from this point on, worse off," Thomas said, adding that he thinks much of the soft money that used to go to parties before the law went into effect in 2002 will flow to new tax-exempt groups that don't have to disclose their fund raising and spending.
Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub, one of four commissioners who voted against new limits, said she supported a proposal by FEC lawyers to take another three months to study the issue.
"I said at the outset I didn't think we had given ourselves enough time to do the job right," Weintraub said.
The FEC lawyers this week urged commissioners to delay a decision until late summer, saying the issue was of such importance that more time was necessary to consider it.
Under debate is how the campaign finance law affects nonparty groups that are spending soft money — corporate, union or unlimited contributions — in the presidential and congressional elections. The law broadly bans soft money from federal elections, including the raising of the big contributions by national party committees.
The Republican Party, Bush's re-election campaign and several campaign watchdog groups accuse Democrats of violating the ban by creating a network of pro-Democratic soft-money groups that are raising and spending millions of dollars to air anti-Bush ads and pay for get-out-the-vote activities. Critics call the groups a shadow party.
That spending helped flood the airwaves with negative commercials about Bush at a time when the Republican incumbent was airing millions of dollars of ads critical of Kerry, who was working to rebuild his campaign's finances before going up with his own commercials after the primaries.
The anti-Bush groups argue that their spending is legal, in part because they stop short of calling for Bush's defeat or for Kerry's election. The FEC was considering whether the use of soft money to promote or criticize a federal candidate is enough to violate the soft-money ban, and the FEC on Thursday decided against saying yes.
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