Senate Votes to Limit PAC Contributions

COVENTRY U .S./W O R L D Paterson named NASA redesigns MB’s sidelined to Town Council shuttle boosters by local teacher ... p a g e 3 — p a g e 7 ... page 12 lUandirfitrr) Manchester — A City ol Village Charm HrralJi Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1986 25 Cents A Shiites, Senate votes French U to limit PAC battie ^ BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — French U.N. peacekeeping troops fought nightlong gunbattles with contributions Shiite Moslem militiamen in south ern Lebanon in which three militia men were killed and 17 Frenchmen By David Goeller can contribute from $1,000 to G were wounded, a U.N. spokesman The Associated Press $1,500. reported today. “The PAC system tends to give The two sides called a cease-fire WASHINGTON - The Senate, special interests a disproporionate at noon today after what U.N. warned that a tidal wave of special share of Influence,” Senate Minor spokesman Timur Goksel decribed interest money is engulfing the ity Leader Robert Byrd. D-W.Va„ as the most serious confrontation democratic process, voted today to said Monday. He added that in 14 months involving (I.N. troops. raising money from PACs to help limit the amount political action Fighting raged for nearly 12 hours committees can give to congres finance increasingly expensive after a checkpoint incident. sional election campaigns. campaigns is a "grubby, demean The U.N. spokesman said three The 69-30 tally was the Senate ing task." other fighters of the main Shiite Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wls., took its first direct vote on the militia, Amal, were wounded in said PAC spending “Is a way for a touchy, close-to-home issue since clashes with machine guns and the post-Watergate reforms of the special interest group... to prevail rocket-propelled grenades. mid-1970s opened the way for the against the public interest. No one Goksel said the known French voluntarily parts with thousands of rise of PACs operated by labor, casualty count climbed from nine business and idelogical groups. dollars ... unless there’s a payoff. to 17 after Amal allowed Lebanese The vote to impose restrictions ... It may come in a speech not Red Cross volunteers to go into on PACs for the 1988 elections was delivered, in one change in a embattled areas of the French a preliminary one, keeping the 240-page bill, in hiring a staff peacekeeping zone east of Tyre to legislation alive and open to member who is sympathetic to a evacuate the victims. ^ PAC.” amendment. A final vote is not The clash erupted Monday night scheduled until after Sept. 8, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, on the outskirts of the village of leaving the plan with relatively defended PAC money. “America is Abbassieh east of Tyre, when two little time to clear Congress in the about special interests. How do we members of the Shiite Ama! militia final weeks of the 1986 session. bring about a concensus of special failed to heed an order to stop their On the House side, more than 100 interests to bring about the na tional interest?” car at a French checkpoint, Goksel members sponsoring similar legis said. lation say they will move into After an argument, both militia action once the Senate sends them men climbed out of the car, a proposal. brandished guns at a French The Senate bill’s chief sponsor, Postal David Boren, D-Okla., concluded soldier manning the checkpoint and then tried to disarm him, the two days of debate on the issue by U.N. official said. urging his colleagues to take Another French soldier watch advantage of the Senate’s first building ing from a distance then opened opportunity in a decade to "cast a vote for serious campaign fire, killing the two militiamen. 2 reform.” That touched off nightlong gunfire "We’re being pounded by a tidal exchages between the French sought wave of special interest money,” contingent and Amal, Goksel said. He said six of the Frenchmen said Boren, one of only a handful of were wounded at Abbassieh and senators who refuse to accept By John Mitchell one at Marakeh, two villages east campaign contributions from Herald Reporter of Tyre, Lebanon's southernmost PACs. port city. "How long are we going to wait Postal officials arein the process Goksel said medics from the before we do something about it?” of trying to consolidate Manches he said. "We must not allow the U.N. force were still unable today ter’s post offices, and plans are to transport the wounded French high positions of public trust in our moving forward, according to a soldiers to the peacekeeping for government to be put on the postal spokeswoman. auction block.” ce's field hospital in the Lebanese Cornelia Newbolt. public rela border town of Naqoura. On Monday, Boren and his allies tions manager for the U.S. Postal Beirut radio stations said Amal recited statistics showing PAC Service in Hartford, said that a militiamen, equipped with machi- money going to congressional committee is reviewing size speci candidates had increased from $12 neguns and shoulder-fired rocket- fications and will then look for a propelled grenades, were besieg Herald photo, by Rocha million in 1974 to $104 million a larger space In order to consoli ing all French positions east of decade later. The figures also date Manchester’s branches. showed 98 members of Congress Tyre. Just peachy Newbolt said the post office is Amal, the most powerful Shiite got more than half their campaign looking to expand because its Janet McAllister of Storrs enjoys a militia in Lebanon, is headed by the Manchester Area Conference of money from PACs in 1982, while offices are overcrowded. 183 members were in that category Lebanon's Justice Minister, Nabih peach at the farmers’ market on Churches. More pictures and a story are Bids on space will be taken "In Berri. in 1984. the not-too-distant future.” she Saturday. The market is sponsored by on page 9. PAC critics say this growing said. stack of money has contributed The post office’s real estate greatly to a sharp rise in the price branch will be doing the site of getting elected. Successful Se inspections. Newbolt said. She said Police crack down on speeding trucks nate candidates in 1976 spent an that the branch, located in Lexing average of $600,000, but the aver ton. Mass., is made up of post office age winner in 1984 spent $2.9 employees with an interest in.real By George Layng computer known as VASCAR may cally on the lookout for speeding have, he said. million, according to Boren. estate. Herald Reporter be making truckers think twice truck drivers. Three other VAS If a truck driver learns state The legislation generally would Specifications for the building about traveling faster than the 55 CAR Mustangs are used to catch police are using radar in a certain limit House candidates to $100,000 include a site of 35,000 square feet, "Like a freight train on wheels" mph speed limit. other motorists, he said. area, the word goes out via citizens in PAC money per election cycle. or about 4‘/(i acres, according to is how Trooper John Strachan of Since state police began using Strachan operates in the central band radios to other truckers. Senate candidates would face a Newbolt. She was unable to offer general limit of from $175,000 to the Connecticut State Police des VASCAR on June 24 . 875 truck Connecticut region, which extends Strachan said. further details. $750,000, depending on a state’s Thomas Tomkunas. superin 9 cribes a speeding tractor trailer. drivers have been arrested for from the Massachusetts, border “If we're using it in Middletown, population. tendent of Manchester postal oper The trucks average between 50.000 speeding, according to Strachan. near Enfield, south throuj^ the 'The bill would cut the maximum and 80.000 pounds, and many That’s twice the number caught they know in Boston that we have ations. said that consolidation has Hartford area, and along Inter amount a PAC can give a candi been doing it.” he said. been needed for nine years. He said travel at speeds over 80 mph. the through usual means, he said. state 91 to New Haven. While the date from $5,000 to $3,000, while The result is that few speeders trooper said. VASCAR. which stands for Vehi- program has been successful. raising the amount an individual are ticketed, hesaid. Assoon asthe Please turn to page 8 While motorists have long com ' cle Average Speed Computer and Strachan said those arrested so far radar area is cleared, truck plained about 18-wheelers crowd Recorder, measures average are "not even the tip of the ing the state’s highways, their speed over a marked distance. It’s iceberg." drivers accelerate back overthe .55 mph limit. Strachan said, making numbers have lately increased. placed in unmarked Ford Mustang However. VASCAR is more CAM BRIDGE REPORTS Hlghlig^ for a limited deterrence. Strachan estimates that morethan state police cars, which have been effective in stopping speeding Not so with VASCAR. because it 100.000 trucks use Connecticut traveling the state’s highways. tractor-trailors than the usual Product Value Ratings roadways every day. looking for offenders and issuing radar detection. Strachan said. is undetectable. Strachan said, adding that it does not bounce a On a scale of excellent, good, only fair, or poor, please tell me how All of this, makes for greater tickets. Radar use can be discovered with beam off a truck. Instead, he said, you'd rale business and industry's performance in producing traffic hazards.

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