The Center for Public Integrity

Political parties are turning to raising money jointly with candidates for Congress in greater numbers than ever this year and the questionable practice has raised more than $13 million so far this election cycle.

Two Republican candidates for the 2001 New Jersey gubernatorial race have set up "527 groups" a full year before the party primary.

Before calling it quits, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had raised more than $19 million for his Republican Senate campaign against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Giuliani campaign, after paying remaining bills and returning $2.8 million in general election funds to contributors, will be left with more than $3 million.

New York Republicans might be nominating Representative Rick Lazio instead of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for the U.S. Senate, but one thing remains the same: Outside interest groups don't want Hillary Rodham Clinton elected.

A group of Wall Street investors, media executives and fiscal policy experts have created a new political group that intends to spend $10 million to oust Republican and Democratic members of Congress who don't favor free-market policies strongly enough.

The same day that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore unveiled his campaign finance reform proposal, an organization with ties to former California Gov. Pete Wilson launched a national attack on Gore by exploiting a tax-law loophole that allows a group to influence elections without having to report its existence to the Federal Election Commission or the Internal Revenue Service.

The 2000 election cycle promised to be a high-stakes and free-spending election by anyone's measure. The balance of power in Congress was in question and the White House was up for grabs. The import of this election cycle meant that interested groups were going to be as active as possible in as many ways as possible.