Bill Would Outlaw GOP’s Donor Check-Off Tactic

Rep. Bruce F. Vento (D-Minn.) of the House Banking Committee introduced legislation Thursday designed to outlaw a Republican fund-raising tactic he says is deceptive.

Earlier this year, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent $25 checks to a million prospective contributors. Fine print on the back of the checks, if they are endorsed, authorizes the GOP committee to deduct $12.50 a month from recipients’ checking accounts.

Vento’s act would amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to ensure that the endorsement, cashing or deposit of a check cannot be used to authorize automatic withdrawals from a checking account.

“If left unchecked this new bait-and-hook gimmick will become the scam artist dream of the ‘90s,” Vento said.

Democratic attorneys general in Alabama and Illinois have filed suit to stop the Republican committee’s solicitation. Republican attorneys general in Wisconsin and Oregon and the Democratic attorney general in Minnesota have said they were investigating the tactic.

Wendy Burnley, a spokeswoman for the Republican committee, said the fund-raising letter accompanying the checks clearly explained that endorsing them would authorize automatic withdrawals.

She said that only the first two withdrawals were mandatory, that further withdrawals could be stopped and that a full refund could be obtained by calling a toll-free number provided in the letter.

However, some recipients have complained that they did not realize that they were authorizing deductions.

Burnley said the Republican committee has agreed to meet with state officials objecting to the solicitations, after the election.

Meanwhile, Democrats asked the Federal Election Commission on Thursday to halt a Republican fund-raising scheme they said could illegally raise millions of dollars for GOP Senate candidates.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee asked the commission to stop the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle, which already has disbursed about $1 million to dozens of candidates.

Republicans defend the Inner Circle as a legitimate joint fund-raising operation exempt from contribution limits.

Federal law allows party committees to give candidates $17,500 and spend an additional amount on their behalf according to individual state populations.

A federal judge last year ruled in a lawsuit filed by Common Cause that the National Republican Senatorial Committee illegally funneled $2.7 million in individual contributions to a dozen 1986 Senate candidates through a maneuver known as “bundling.”

The differences between the 1986 and 1990 operations “are no more than cosmetic,” the Democrats said.