Some of these items may be slow to reach the floors of both the House and the Senate, as the Republicans will undoubtedly hold oversight and investigation hearings to provide them time to examine the bureaucracy they would like to reduce, eliminate, or move to the states. While Republican efforts to eliminate the Departments of Commerce, Energy, and Education died in the 104th Congress, such efforts should be revived in the 105th Congress. One area that is bound to receive early attention is campaign finance reform. The 1996 presidential and congressional election campaigns evidenced unsurpassed sums of money being spent by labor unions, business groups, candidates, and their political parties. Both political parties raised and spent more money on this election than in other previous federal campaign.
Incumbents are clearly aware of the requirement to raise large campaign sums.
In fact, in the past election, House members spent 72 percent of all funds expended in House races, and Senate members spent 60 percent of all funds expended in Senate races. Shortly before the fall election, the story broke that John Huang, a former Democratic National Committee official and an official in the Department of Commerce, was responsible for alleged Democratic irregularities in fund-raising. Huang, a former Lippo Group executive, solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable campaign contributions for the Democratic party. Mochtar Riady and his son James, Indonesian billionaires, head the Lippo Group, a Jakarta-based banking conglomerate with two U.S. subsidiaries, Lippo Group USA and Lippo Bank. Many of their U.S. subsidiaries and executives contributed vast sums of money to the Democratic National Committee.