The Center for Public Integrity

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2000 — On June 8, the Senate passed an amendment by Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., that would force currently invisible political groups to disclose their identities and their sources of funding. Congress is trying to decide which measure will best accomplish that.

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.

Sixty of George W. Bush's overnight guests at the Texas Governor's Mansion have collectively given and raised more than $2.2 million to further Bush's political career, an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity shows. At least 15 of Bush's guests are members of Bush's elite team of presidential fund-raisers, the $100,000-plus "Pioneers," according to the full list of overnight guests from January 1995 through February 2000.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has talked at length about tax cuts that would benefit lower- and middle-income taxpayers. He has also said that most of those cuts would be financed by closing loopholes in the tax code that are enjoyed by those corporations flooding Washington with campaign contributions. What the Arizona senator doesn't talk much about is a bill he proposed in October that would enrich a few of those well-heeled corporations — the large telecommunications firms that have bankrolled much of his political career.

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.