Fw: New Public Citizen Report

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

From: " Congress Watchdog " <CONGRESSWATCHDOG@...>

Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 3:32 PM

Subject: New Public Citizen Report

While the nation celebrates the hard-won passage of campaign finance reform,

signed into law by President Bush recently, reform opponents are already

looking for ways to get around the soft money ban within the bill. In a

report released by Public Citizen yesterday, shadowy " 527 " political

organizations, which can accept unlimited contributions from corporations,

unions, and wealthy individuals, are likely to become conduits for soft

money that political parties will be prohibited from collecting after this

November's election under the new campaign reform law.

The report was released to influence a vote on a " taxpayer relief " bill that

Republican leaders rushed to the floor of the House last night and today.

That legislation contained a provision that would have reduced disclosure by

527 groups - exactly the opposite of what Public Citizen's study found is

needed. Despite the popularity of the overall bill, campaign reform forces

defeated it today by a vote of 205 to 219 with 25 Republicans joining most

Democrats. This is a great win against anti-reform Republican House

leaders.

To read the press statement released by Public Citizen, please click here:

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1076

To read the report, please click here:

http://www.citizen.org/congress/campaign/legislation/section527/articles.cfm

?ID=7372

To read coverage by the Associated Press, please click here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21090-2002Apr9.html

Please distribute this widely to friends, family members, and activist

networks.

For more information on this, and the other issues Public Citizen works on,

visit:

www.citizen.org