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WASHINGTON – Republicans are making another run at overturning a ban on unlimited "soft money" contributions. Their Democratic rivals say it is an attempt to bring big money back to politics because the GOP can't keep up with President Barack Obama's fundraising machine. The Republican National Committee is suing to overturn part of a ban on unlimited contributions passed by Congress in 2002 and upheld by the Supreme Court a year later.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American Conservative Union (ACU) chairman David A. Keene announced today that ACU has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against MoveOn.org Political Action and the New York Times Company for violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. On Monday, September 10, 2007, MoveOn sponsored a full-page advertisement in the New York Times attacking General David Petraeus prior to his report to Congress regarding the status of the United States military operations in Iraq. The open rate for a full-page...

Senate Democrats are considering placing curbs on soft-money 527 groups amid evidence that they are beginning to lose the political advantage these largely unregulated funds have given them over Republicans. This is a move Democrats had strenuously opposed during the last Congress, when they were believed to benefit from the lion’s share of 527 money, but now there is evidence that more of the money from these groups, named for a clause in the tax code, is flowing to the GOP. Meanwhile, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (Ill.), is planning to introduce legislation in the next...

WASHINGTON - The Federal Election Commission failed to give a good reason for refusing to rein in nonprofit political groups that spent huge sums in the 2004 presidential elections, a judge has ruled in a case brought by President Bush's campaign and lawmakers. In a 34-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the FEC failed to give "a reasoned explanation" for its decision not to issues rules to require so-called "527" groups to register as federal political action committees and face the same strict fundraising, spending and disclosure rules PACs do. But Sullivan stopped short of saying the...

"HOW'S THE NEWS ON SOFT MONEY GOING?" MAURICE I. MICHAANE '03 There's good news and bad news on the campaign finance reform front . The good news lies in the unprecedented agreement between New York Senate candidates Hillary Rodham (D) and Rep. Rick Lazio (R) to forgo millions of dollars worth of soft-money advertising on their behalf and to urge independent groups not to mount ad campaigns for them. The bad news arises from evidence that, despite the campaign finance scandals of 1996, the White House guest rooms are still being used by President and Mrs. Clinton to raise money...

ALBANY, Feb. 16 - The federal government may have cracked down on the use of soft money by national political parties, but the tradition is alive and well in New York State. Local parties can still accept unlimited corporate donations to their so-called housekeeping committees, which have few restrictions on how they can spend the money. The increasing use of party housekeeping committees was highlighted this year by the disclosure that the state Republican Party's housekeeping committee pays the salary of a full-time assistant for the state's first lady, Libby Pataki. Critics say the accounts are used to skirt the...

It's encouraging to see signs of life in Washington, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle, over the obvious need to plug the newest subterranean pipe for unregulated campaign funds from big labor, big corporations and just plain big money. Of all the subplots in the presidential election, none were as sorry as the Democrats' pioneering "527" groups - named for the section of the tax code that governs them. The 527's were intended to circumvent the law's strictures against having unlimited soft money flood into political races. The Democrats built these new shadow-party advocacy groups to attack the...

WASHINGTON - Whatever the reasons John Kerry and the Democrats lost the race for the White House, lack of money wasn't one. Tax-exempt pro-Democratic groups raising big checks for this year's election collected almost twice as much money as their Republican rivals in the presidential race, a study shows. The financial advantage comes in addition to record fund raising by Kerry, the unsuccessful candidate, and the Democratic Party. In all, nonparty political groups, known as 527s because of the tax code section that covers them, raised about $534 million and spent roughly $544 million in the 2003-04 election cycle, the...

Once again, CBS continues to carry water for the Kerry Campaign - even going so far as to "partner" with a Soros-funded 527 designed to push polls for John Kerry. MTV's "CHOOSE OR LOSE" - ROCK THE VOTE 2004 - Poll Gives Kerry Big Lead Among Voters Under 30 09.21.2004 11:53 AM EDT Younger voters think the country is heading in the wrong direction and that President Bush does not share their priorities, but they like Bush personally and are unsure about John Kerry. Overall, Kerry has a substantial lead among voters under thirty, a reversal of the Bush's nine-point...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 - Just last week, Stanley Greenberg was the polling mastermind guiding the way three liberal groups spent tens of millions of dollars attacking President Bush and registering voters. But he quit that position to be an unpaid adviser to the Kerry campaign as it presses to sharpen its message in the final 56 days before the election. Mr. Greenberg is just the latest in a procession of top strategists who have moved between the campaigns and advocacy groups called 527's - the very organizations that are not supposed to coordinate their activities under campaign finance rules. The...

Republicans rake in campaign contributions from inside corporate suites while the little guy writes out his meager check to Democrats, right? Actually, no. The Center for Responsive Politics conducted a study of the 2002 Federal election cycle, the most recent cycle with complete data. The Center found that individuals giving $200 or less gave 64 percent of their money to the GOP and 35 percent to Democrats. However, very wealthy contributors who gave one million dollars or more gave 92 percent to Democrats and just eight percent to Republicans. Democrats also benefited from donors giving 100,000-dollars or more while Republicans...

DNC "WAR ROOM" SPOKESMAN JAY CARSON: "‘John Kerry has been withdrawing money from the special interest bank for his entire career and now – because it’s the popular thing to do – he wants us to believe that he’s going to close the account and go after the people that have funded his political career,’ said Jay Carson ..." (Jim VandeHei, “Kerry Leads In Lobby Money,” The Washington Post , 1/31/04)LEARN MORE ABOUT KERRY/EDWARDS' SHIFTING POSITIONS AT WWW.KERRYONIRAQ.COM

ARLINGTON, VA -- Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman issued the following statement: "Ben's resignation is an example of a decent public servant who understood the entrenched double standard in the media’s examination of the relationship between campaigns and outside interest groups, exemplified by their tolerance of blatant lies by two Kerry spokespeople regarding their campaign's relationship with Bob Bauer. The Kerry campaign’s hypocrisy today embodies the worst of American politics. Ben's Democratic counterparts and outside observers of campaign finance law have all made clear that there's no legal conflict in what Bauer, Joe Sandler and Ben Ginsberg do for...

Is anybody else concerned that both parties want to clamp down on "Unregulated" speech. Since when is political speech supposed to be regulated? (I know, I know, I read the Supreme Court's twisted logic, too...) The 527s are the only way plain folks can be heard without having to go through the parties, talk show call screeners or newspaper editors to reach the "masses". (Notice, I didn't mention blogs, chat rooms and discussion groups - I still assume the masses don't know we exist!) 527s aren't shadowy - they are already regulated and open as much as anybody - all...

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush (news - web sites) denounced TV ads by outside groups attacking both John Kerry (news - web sites) and himself on Monday and called for a halt to all such political efforts. "I think they're bad for the system," he said The president made his comments as the Kerry campaign fought back against charges made by an outside group that the Democratic senator had lied about wartime events in Vietnam for which he received five medals.

.............To their credit, a few journalists are now seeing the scales fall from their eyes. The Washington Post's David Broder, dean of the Beltway press corps, now admits that "it is virtually impossible to control the flow of money from the private sector into the political world. . . . The best one can hope is that new rules do not produce more unintended negative consequences than benefits. McCain-Feingold is flunking that test." Sen. George Allen, who once occupied Thomas Jefferson's seat in the Virginia Legislature, says that the only way to honor the First Amendment's protections of political speech...

Latest Release...August 22, 2004 Who’s Betting on Whom? The Death of One More Myth… Written by JB Williams ©2004-08-19 In my last article, I laid to rest the notion that Kerry/Edwards were anything short of the two biggest political prostitutes in Washington in terms of sucking up special interest soft money. Despite Kerry’s “anti-special interest campaign rhetoric”, no McCain-Feingold legislation was going to keep the king Kong of soft money shake downs out of this Presidential race. (Next to marrying rich women and dodging fellow veterans, it’s one of Kerry’s few true talents.) However, Kerry’s socialist billionaire buddy’s and Hollywood...

Polls show that ad is hurting Kerry, especially among veterans. His campaign is demanding President Bush renounce it. "The president needs to step to the plate, not through a spokesperson, himself, and say, ‘take down these ads,’” Sen. John Edwards said. The Bush campaign won’t take the bait. What the public sees from the Kerry campaign is a series of false and flailing attacks, they charge. The president himself has been the target of $63 million in attack ads, they claim, and Bush wants all soft money ads stopped. "John Kerry's campaign is the only campaign that has questioned anybody's...

This may be old news, but John Podesta was on the Sunday news programs talking about the supposed link between the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush Campaign. Seems those who live in glass houses shouldn't be so naked. This link calls this "part II", of an expose of MoveOn.org's campaign corruption, and George Soros's plan to defeat Bush. I know, old news, but this document goes into specifics and the ties shown are a little damning at this particular time. At the bottom are details of a complaint to the FEC. Anyone seen this or know where...