6.28.00
Disclose This

6.28.00
Ruling without Mercy

6.28.00
RU-486 Is No Boon for U.S. Women

6.27.00
Bush Does the Lulac

6.26.00
Loud and Proud

6.23.00
Dr. James Boice, R.I.P.

6.22.00
Hate (Crime) Cannot Wish Thee Worse

6.20.00
Murder in California

6.20.00
Collective Oblivion

6.19.00
Stand There and Enjoy It

6.19.00
Justice Should Be Color-Blind

6/28/00 1:35 p.m.
Disclose This
Republicans try to dodge the campaign-finance bullet.

By Ben Domenech, NRO contributing editor

few minutes after midnight, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment that would require organizations classified under section 527 of the IRS code to disclose their political activities. The bill, after hours of debate on the House floor, was opposed by only 39 Congressmen, all Republicans.

Originally proposed by New York's Amo Houghton, a liberal Republican, with support on the Senate side from John McCain, the bill's passage was actually heralded by many in the GOP leadership as a welcome event.

"It moves the issue off the table, gets rid of the campaign- finance issue in the fall," said one member of the House leadership. "The only organizations it affects are 527's, and we're willing to give way on disclosure for them if it keeps the issue from coming back to haunt us later on."

Indeed, some GOPers had proposed broadening the measure — which requires regular reporting of donor names and specific fiscal records to the Federal Elections Committee — to include unions, political-action committees, and nearly all non-profit associations. Such sweeping changes would have helped conservative Republicans kill the issue on the House floor.

Passage of the 527 legislation will entail a host of new forms and red tape for such organizations and PACs, which will have to publicly disclose a full list of their donors and politically related actions every three months, and will be enforced as soon as the President signs the bill into law. The legislation also has the potential to end up as a major Washington power-grab, since it will require state- and local-level groups to report their actions at the Federal level (i.e., a New York-based 527 will now have to answer to the FEC, not Albany). Previously, 527's weren't required to disclose any significant information.

In any case, the lopsided House vote in favor of this bill makes it almost certain that the measure will become law before the November election. House Republicans can only hope that the bill's passage puts the campaign-finance issue to bed, at least for this year.

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