Tuesday, April 20, 2004
McCain-Feingold "Reform" Boosts Lobbyist Contributions
Today's New York Times reports that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as the McCain-Feingold bill, has led to a 53% increase in contributions from lobbyists to federal politicians. This is not at all surprising, given that the law doubled the amount that any lobbyist can give to a politician from $1000 to $2000, and took the total amount that any lobbyist can give to all their favorite politicians and parties from $50,000 to $95,000. Those aren't amounts that the rest of us can fork over, but highly paid lobbyists seem to be managing no problem.
The McCain-Feingold bill banned parties, but not outside groups, from raising and spending unlimited soft money contributions. However, according to a 2001 study that I helped design called Lobbyists Last Laugh, 92% of the funds previously given by lobbyists were hard money contributions to candidates, not soft money gifts to parties. So, it was easy to predict that this so-called reform would be a boon to lobbyists. Given that the candidate who raises the most money wins about 95% of the time, this gives any member of Congress second thoughts before they decide to stand up to the lobbyists on Gucci Gulch.
Today's New York Times reports that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as the McCain-Feingold bill, has led to a 53% increase in contributions from lobbyists to federal politicians. This is not at all surprising, given that the law doubled the amount that any lobbyist can give to a politician from $1000 to $2000, and took the total amount that any lobbyist can give to all their favorite politicians and parties from $50,000 to $95,000. Those aren't amounts that the rest of us can fork over, but highly paid lobbyists seem to be managing no problem.
The McCain-Feingold bill banned parties, but not outside groups, from raising and spending unlimited soft money contributions. However, according to a 2001 study that I helped design called Lobbyists Last Laugh, 92% of the funds previously given by lobbyists were hard money contributions to candidates, not soft money gifts to parties. So, it was easy to predict that this so-called reform would be a boon to lobbyists. Given that the candidate who raises the most money wins about 95% of the time, this gives any member of Congress second thoughts before they decide to stand up to the lobbyists on Gucci Gulch.
Comments:
Post a Comment
