Hightower Lowdown

We all know about "soft money" loopholes in our campaign finance laws, which lets corporate executives give unlimited sums to political parties from their corporate treasuries—something that's supposed to be illegal. These massive contributions are at least required to be disclosed to the public, so can know who's bribing whom.

Now come the Republican congressional leaders with a new scheme to sack up unlimited mountains of corporate money, but with the added, diabolical twist of allowing the corporations to give anonymously. Righto—Exxon, Microsoft, GE and the other heavy hitters can each stuff a million bucks or more into committees formed by key lawmakers, and not even tell the public who's giving and how much . . . much less what they're getting back.

Rep. Tom DeLay, the GOP's top legislative general and ethical minimalist, has created one of these corrupt money funnels, calling it the Republican Issues Majority Committee. A who's who of corporate lobbyists attended the initial fund raising event aboard a private yacht, where the lobbyists were greeted by the Republican leaders of Congress. DeLay's yacht party was like a floating house of legislative prostitution—lobbyists giving unlimited sums of money to curry favor with lawmakers, and the whole transaction was done in the dark.

To help stop this corruption of the political system, contact Public Campaign: 202 293 0222.