Healthy Fallout

Pressure for fuller campaign-finance disclosures has been building for years, prompted by ever fresh scandals and the ever-rising cost of the campaigns themselves. Now the rush of Watergate has broken a veritable log jam of pending state legislation, and new, stiffer legislation has been knocked hastily together.

Massachusetts legislators may pass a bill lowering the ceiling for individual contributions from $3,000 to $500. Vermont is considering a law that all state employees must disclose their financial interests, and Florida last month put new enforcement teeth into its already formidable "who gave it, who got it" election law, creating a bipartisan elections committee with the power to institute civil and criminal actions.

Illinois is expected to pass a campaign disclosure law after 1 1/2 years of sitting on it. An Illinois Republican Representative says that ethics legislation, because of Watergate, has become "like motherhood -- there is no way you can be against it."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.