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Wednesday, February 15, 1995
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New campaign law means extra funds for acts of kindness
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Here's a quick quiz for the cymical.
New federal campaign spending reportsreveal:
A) Lawmakers paid for Caribbean vacations with election donations.
B) Elvie A. Presley of Memphis, Tenn., donated money to President Clinton's 1996 campaign fund.
C) Former members of Congress gave six- and seven-figure donations to charity.
The answer, perhaps surprising to some, is C.
The latest Federal Election Commission records show a new trend in the way lawmakers spend their leftover campaign donations — one ushered in by changes in federal law.
The recipients in this year's sweepstakes aren't former lawmakers' own bank accounts or foundations bearing their names.
Instead, community outreach groups, museums and other nonprofit groups around the country are receiving unexpected windfalls.
For years, members of Congress who left office could take leftover campaign funds with them — sums that sometimes reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to a 1994 study by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based ethics watchdog agency, retiring members of Congress had pocketed about $5 million in leftover campaign cash since 1979. Former Rep. Larry Hopkins, R-Ky., kept the most at $655,000.
The practice that enriched Hopkins was eliminated with a campaign finance reform measure passed in 1992. The measure took effect with this election cycle.
In July, shortly after announcing he wouldn't seek re-election, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell sent $1 million to the Maine Community Foundation, a public organization that manages and administers funds that benefit colleges, universities and charitable groups in Maine.
In Missouri, a consortium of churches that provides services to inner-city youth received $650,000 in leftover campaign money from former Sen. John Danforth.
Since then, Danforth has conducted a fund-raiser for the group, InterACT-St. Louis, that raised an additional $1 million.
Others gave smaller charitable donations, such as former Oklahoma Democratic Sen. David Boren, who donated $6,000 to his state's Cowboy Hall of Fame.
And the charity was not always limited to retirees. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif, split $1,000 between a food bank, a youth services bureau and a center for teen-agers in Contra Costa County, Calif.
Outside of charity, lawmakers did manage to find other creative ways to spend leftover campaign kitties under the new rules.
Several picked up the tab for parties for their staffs. Among them was Danforth, who shelled out $10,000 for an event at a nightclub owned by drummer Mick Fleetwood of the rock group Fleetwood Mac.
Other retirees transferred small donations to colleagues who were still fighting to keep their jobs on Capitol Hill.
And former Illinois Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, the once-powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, continues to drain his campaign fund to pay his bills to fight federal corruption charges filed against him in 1993.
Rostenkowski passed up the chance to retire in 1992 and legally take home a campaign treasury worth more than $1 million at the time. He was defeated in November.
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