Friday, August 04, 2006

Politicians in Washington have a long history of "beating the system" of campaign finance laws. This attitude has promoted the fueling of "Leadership PACs", which were originally used in the 1990's to help a few Congressmen get elected to party leadership positions.

According to the August 4th posting of the Campaign Legal Center Blog, leadership PACs are increasingly used to skirt existing laws on campaign contribution limits. Individuals are limited to contributing $4,200 per election cycle to the authorized campaign committee of a candidate for the House or Senate. However, an individual can separately contribute $5,000 a year ($30,000 over a six-year cycle) to a Senator's leadership PAC, though those funds cannot be used by the candidate for their own reelection. But, put another way, having a leadership PAC allows a Senator to solicit and receive $30,000 more than the Senator could otherwise take for his campaign committee. this evasion scheme could get much worse if the House leaders have their way. Twice already in the 109th Congress, House leaders have threatened to attach a rider to pending legislation that would allow incumbents to bypass existing campaign finance laws and shift around huge amounts of money from leadership PACs to the tightest Congressional races in the country, and even to their own campaigns. Under current law, leadership PACs are limited to donating $15,000 per year to party committees. The proposal would allow Members to make unlimited contributions from their leadership PACs to party committees, which could then turn around and apply those funds to the same Members' campaigns. Outside of politics that practice is generally referred to as "money laundering." With this measure, the campaign contribution limits that have passed U.S. Supreme Court muster would go right out the window. If successful, the proposed loophole would allow a Senator to take the $30,000 an individual gave to his leadership PAC and then by laundering contributions through party committees, effectively transfer those funds to his campaign committee. The $4,200 campaign contribution limit would mushroom to $34,200 ($4,200 individual limit plus $30,000 to the leadership PAC) - an increase of more than 800%.

In the "real world", money laundering would land you in jail. Obviously, leaders in Congress are saying to the people of this great country, "happy days are here again, contrary to your interests! I did not come here to better the lives of our children and grandchildren, but to live it up! And wait until I retire!".

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