‘Soft Money’ Became a Runaway Train This Election

In what one critic described as “the loophole that swallowed the law,” the two major political parties spent more so-called “soft money”--about $80 million--on television ads this election than was spent by their own presidential candidates.

Altogether, about $163 million was spent by the campaigns of Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, their parties and outside groups in an election that, nearly five weeks after the votes were cast, neither side can say with authority that it won.

The spending dwarfs that of the presidential campaign of 1996, when the two parties and their candidates--President Clinton and Republican challenger Bob Dole--spent a combined $116 million, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Of particular concern, the center said, is the tidal wave of soft money that washed over the 2000 campaign--money that is supposed to be used only for party-building activities.

“The players that are legally barred from running any ads for candidates are now buying most of the air time, and illegal money is now more prevalent in our elections than legal money,” Brennan Center President E. Joshua Rosenkranz said. “The new Congress needs to get very serious, very quickly about ending this travesty of a campaign finance system.”

Demands for campaign finance reform coursed through the 2000 election, helping propel Arizona Sen. John McCain’s bid for the Republican nomination and Ralph Nader’s Green Party campaign for the White House.

Decades-old federal laws bar corporations and labor unions from spending money on federal elections, says Common Cause, a government watchdog group based in Washington. In 1974, federal laws capped individual donations at $1,000 to a federal candidate and $20,000 in one year to a political party engaged in a federal election.

But the Federal Election Commission ruled in 1978 that individuals, corporations and unions could spend an unlimited amount of money for party building. Four years ago, after the Clinton and Dole campaigns both used soft money, the FEC declined to pursue charges because, Rosenkranz said, the law was deemed too vague.

The FEC announced just before election day that Democrats had raised nearly $199 million in soft money, an 85% increase over the previous presidential election cycle, and that the Republicans raised nearly $211 million, a 74% increase. Soft money accounted for 53% of Democratic national fund-raising and 42% of Republican efforts, the FEC said.

But overall, the GOP had far out-raised and outspent the Democrats with two weeks to go before the election, the FEC said. Final commission reports are pending. Republicans had raised $295 million and spent $252 million at that point, compared with $173 million raised and $154 million spent by Democrats.

About $144 million was spent on House races, about evenly split between the parties, although outside groups spent about $11 million more on Republican candidates than on Democrats.

About $175 million was spent on Senate races, most of it by candidates’ campaigns, although the Democrats spent $21 million to about $18 million by the Republicans. Outside groups spent $4.9 million on Republican candidates and $5.7 million on Democrats.

The Brennan Center study, which was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and used data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group, found that cities targeted by the soft-money TV buyers are where the toughest campaign fights occurred.

Of the top seven markets, based on the number of ads bought between June 1 and Nov. 7, three were in Michigan and two each were in Missouri and Washington state. The heaviest volumes were in St. Louis, with 28,680 ads aired; and Detroit, with 28,620 ads. The top 10 heaviest-buy markets saw a total of 239,300 ads, or an average of 150 ads a day.