Both Major Parties Play Hard With Soft Money

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, July 19) -- The Democrats and the Republicans are raking in record amounts of campaign money this year, much of it through "soft money" donations that are not supposed to be used for purely electoral purposes.

Each party's national committee each took in more than $44 million in the last three months, including soft money donations of $25 million for the Democrats and $21 million for the Republicans. While election laws only allow soft money to be used for "party-building activities" such as voting drives, both parties have used millions of "soft" dollars to run political ads.

Soft money donations have exploded onto the political scene this year, accounting for $35 million of the donations each party has received since January. In 1992, Republicans only took in $9 million and Democrats $5 million in soft money.

Donald Simon, executive vice president of the citizen advocacy group Common Cause, told the Associated Press soft money is the worst kind.

"It's these huge corporate and union donations and $100,000 individual contributions that the parties raise by openly selling access and influence," Simon said.

Although corporations and unions are prohibited by law from making political contributions to individual candidates, they can make unlimited soft money donations. And while individuals can only give $20,000 a year to national political parties, soft money donations don't count against the contribution limit.

Some companies have been donating soft money to both parties, covering themselves whatever the outcome in November. This year Anheuser-Busch gave $100,000 to the Democrats and $145,000 to the Republicans. MCI Telecommunications gave $100,000 to the Democrats and $140,000 to the Republicans.

"They're hedging their bets," Amy Weiss Tobe, Democratic National Committee spokeswoman, told the Associated Press. "It's smart business-wise for them to play both sides."

But Tobe said such corporations "are certainly not getting anything special for their money."

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Both Major Parties Play Hard With Soft Money

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