| WASHINGTON
- March 30 - As part of their push to win control of state legislatures, both
national political parties poured millions of dollars last year into state election contests.
But the efforts by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee
(DLCC), an arm of the Democratic National Committee, went largely unnoticed - until
now.
The DLCC does not file campaign finance reports with
the Federal Election Commission, so the extent of its fund-raising and spending on behalf of state
candidates has escaped public scrutiny.
However, the new edition of Capital Eye, the Center for Responsive Politics' newsletter,
analyzes campaign finance reports by DLCC PACs organized in 16 states.
The analysis identifies more than $2 million in total
receipts to the DLCC in these 16 states, many with few - if any - restrictions on the size and source of
campaign contributions.
Capital Eye reports that nearly half that money ($963,514) came from donors with Washington,
D.C. addresses, with labor unions and trial attorneys providing the biggest contributions.
Leading DLCC donors identified included AFSCME ($146,449), the AFL-CIO ($132,690), the National
Education Association ($88,475), the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and its affiliates
($78,882), Texas trial attorney Walter Umphrey ($77,000), Alabama attorney Randall S. Hayes
($70,000), and AT&T ($57,916).
Capital Eye also reports that Wisconsin donors - including companies that could not legally make
contributions in the state - gave at least $64,709 to out-of-state DLCC PACs in 1997-98. During the same period, the
DLCC transferred some $271,000 in unitemized contributions into Wisconsin state political
committees.
Also in the latest Capital Eye:
-- It's been more than a quarter century since the
Senators left Washington, but baseball still has a major league presence on Capitol Hill. To
celebrate opening day, Capital Eye publishes the campaign contribution standings by teams in the
four major league sports.
-- Presidential candidates have found a new loophole:
state political action committees. By establishing PACs in states without campaign finance limits,
candidates can raise unlimited amounts to advance their political ambitions. Capital Eye identifies
the big donors to Lamar Alexander's state PACs in Tennessee and Virginia.
-- Some congressional candidates have difficulty paying their political debts - literally. Capital
Eye looks at candidates who borrowed lots of money in unsuccessful bids for office, and are now stuck
repaying the huge debts out of their own pockets.
Capital Eye is a bimonthly newsletter published by
the Center for Responsive Politics to provide a non- partisan, close-up look at money in politics. Free
mail subscriptions are available. Capital Eye can also be found on the Web at http://www.crp.org
.
-30-
The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan,
non-profit research organization in Washington, D.C. that studies the role of money in federal politics
and its impact on government policy.
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