WASHINGTON - March 21 - House Republican leaders are preparing to undertake a brazen effort in the next few weeks to gut the nation's campaign finance laws and to pass only cosmetic lobbying and ethics reforms, as their response to the public's deep concerns about the corruption and lobbying scandals in Congress.

Although polls show ''corruption ranked among the concerns most often cited by those polled, with 43 percent telling pollsters it would be an 'extremely important' issue in 2006,'' (CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, January 10, 2006), this appears to be of no interest to House Republican leaders pushing their anti-reform agenda.

Gutting the Campaign Finance Laws

During the two week period between the St. Patrick's Day recess ending on March 27, and the Easter recess beginning on April 7, House Republican leaders are planning to bring legislative proposals to the House floor that would:
*Allow members of Congress and political parties to again use corrupting, unlimited soft money in federal campaigns to buy campaign ads on the Internet. The proposal would ''permit rampant circumvention of the campaign finance laws and foster corruption or the appearance of corruption,'' according to a federal district court (H.R. 1606);
*Allow a single individual to contribute an overall total of more than $4,000,000 to members of Congress and their political parties to influence federal elections in a two-year election cycle (H.R. 1316).

H.R. 1316 repeals the aggregate limit on the total amount that an individual can contribute to all federal candidates and to political parties in a two-year election cycle;
*Allow a President, Senator or Representative to solicit a total of almost $3,000,000 from a single individual for the officeholder's party and the party's federal candidates in a two-year election cycle (H.R. 1316);
*Allow a member of Congress to solicit more than $1,000,000 from a single individual to be spent by the Member and the Member's party to directly support the Member's election in a two-year election cycle (H.R. 1316).

''H.R. 1316, sponsored by Representative Mike Pence (R-IN), would return us to the dark ages of pre-Watergate campaign financing and allow individual donors to contribute huge sums of money to buy influence with members of Congress,'' according to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer.

''Under the Pence bill, a Washington lobbyist, such as convicted criminal Jack Abramoff, or a defense contractor, such as convicted criminal Mitchell Wade of Representative Duke Cunningham infamy, could contribute a million dollars to support the campaign of a Member from whom they were seeking favorable government treatment,'' according to Wertheimer.
''Similarly, H.R. 1606, sponsored by Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), would exempt from the campaign finance laws an entire category of campaign advertising by members of Congress and political parties,'' according to Wertheimer.
''The Hensarling bill would provide an exemption from the laws for Members and parties to again use unlimited, corrupting soft money, provided by corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals, to buy campaign ads on the Internet,'' Wertheimer stated.

''At the same time, campaign ads purchased by Members and parties on all other forms of media would be subject to the federal campaign finance laws and therefore prohibited from being funded with soft money,'' Wertheimer said.

''This would be an absolutely absurd result and can only be understood as a pure effort to open huge soft money loopholes in the campaign finance laws,'' Wertheimer stated.

Cosmetic Reforms that Leave Lobbying and Ethics Abuses Free to Continue

House Republican leaders are also planning to bring only cosmetic lobbying and ethics reform legislation (H.R. 4975) to the House floor during this period that would do nothing to address numerous lobbying and ethics problems. H.R. 4975 would:
*Provide no reforms to address the scandalous failure of the House Ethics Committee to enforce the House ethics rules, and to even function in 2005;
*Provide no reforms to require public disclosure by lobbyists of the numerous undisclosed ways they solicit and arrange campaign contributions and provide other financial benefits to Members the lobbyists are trying to influence;
*Provide no reforms to prevent corporations from making their company planes available to Members to travel at deeply-discounted costs, thereby providing substantial financial benefits to Members they are trying to influence;
*Provide no reforms to prevent lobbyists, corporations and others from spending $50,000 and $100,000 and more, to finance lavish parties at the party conventions to ''honor'' a Member, thereby providing substantial financial benefits to