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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (136958)	4/10/2001 12:03:02 PM
From: willcousa	Respond to of 769670

Not only does McCain have no electoral mandate, he has no popular mandate either.

To: Zoltan! who wrote (136958)	4/10/2001 12:41:25 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Another special interest that LOVES McCain's "reform"- Indian casinos: So why aren’t Indian tribes raising hell over McCain’s soft-money ban? The answer lies in an obscure ruling by the Federal Election Commission last year, which was overlooked by the mainstream press cheerleaders for campaign finance reform and downplayed on Capitol Hill for self-interested reasons. Responding to a request by lobbyists for the Oneida Indian Nation, a Democrat-leaning tribe which owns and perates the profitable Turning Stone Casino in Oneida, N.Y., the FEC ruled unanimously that Indian tribes are not subject to the aggregate limit on annual giving by "individuals." In one of those inexplicable Clintonesque legal interpretations, the FEC ruled that while a tribe is a "person" subject to individual limits on contributions to candidates, parties, and political action committees, it is not an "individual" subject to the current $25,000 limit on its annual total of contributions. In other words, while Joe Donor is limited to giving 25, $1,000 hard-money donations to 25 candidates during an election cycle, the Oneida Nation or any other tribe can use tribal government funds to give unlimited "individual" donations of $1,000 each to an unlimited number of candidates. That cash is essentially soft money disguised as hard money. The bottom line is that Indian tribes, especially those flush with casino profits and other funds from corporate enterprises, gain an enormous leg up on other political donors. The ruling "enables an Indian tribe to become a political cash register that can gulp ‘soft money’ from any source and disgorge it as ‘hard money’ contributions or expenditures, " explains Ed Zuckerman, editor of the PACS and Lobbies newsletter. Zuckerman concluded that FEC gave tribes "a unique opportunity to earn transaction fees and commissions by utilizing their tribal accounts to launder soft money into a new form of hard money that might be called ‘political wampum.’ " Zuckerman told me this week it is "quite possible, very possible" that this cozy little laundromat arrangement could pick up business dramatically if McCain-Feingold becomes the law of the land. jewishworldreview.com For extra credit, guess the only Republican that gets a boat load of Indian money?