Article: The Gaggers and Gag-making: Hypocrisy among the campaign-finance reformers.

It's a common scene in Washington. Lobbyists representing powerful, well-financed special interests sit behind closed doors with members of Congress drafting legislation. Outside Washington, their dollars finance TV ad campaigns in the districts of wavering House members, hoping to pressure them into supporting the bill. Highly technical and complex legislation is then unveiled in the middle of the night, and most members of Congress have no time to read it before debate begins the next morning. Efforts by grassroots groups to amend the bill to protect their members are rebuffed, and though the bill contains provisions that even its sponsors admit are probably ...