TOBACCO CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANDIDATES INCREASING

In a bid to win support for sweeping tobacco legislation, the major
cigarette producers have showered lawmakers with record campaign
contributions, even as some old allies are swearing off tobacco money.

Tobacco interested pumped $4.5 million into the coffers of federal
candidates and national political parties in 1997, an industry record for a
non-election year.

An analysis done for the New York Times by the Campaign Study Group, a
research company in Springfield, Va., shows that the industry began
stepping up its contributions in 1995 and 1996, with accelerated donations
continuing into last year, the most recent for which federal elections
records are available.

In those years, more than $14 million flowed to the Democratic and
Republican National committees, other party committees and the campaign
treasuries of candidates who were seeking federal office. The industry also
spent more than $58 million on lobbying over the past two years.

Despite the industry's increased largess and lobbying, prospects for its
most important legislative foal, congressional enactment of the $368.5
billion tobacco settlement reached last year, are extremely cloudy, and the
industry's public image and political position has never been more
precarious.

Cigarette makers in the settlement would be shielded from some future suits
filed by smokers seeking damages for tobacco-related illnesses.

Some top recipients of contributions over the last seven years have joined
a chorus of industry critics. Other former allies have recently decided to
stop taking tobacco money altogether because they view the contribution as
tainted.

Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr. (R-Va.) who is the chairman of the House Commerce
Committee, has been the top recipient, with $159,416 in contributions from
tobacco political action committees and individuals affiliated with the
industry since 1991.

But Bliley has lately been a thorn in tobacco's side, issuing subpoenas for
sensitive industry documents and chastising executives during their
testimony over marketing to teenagers.

Meanwhile, a number of leading lawmakers who gratefully accepted the
industry's cash have sworn off tobacco money. Among them is House Minority
Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), who has received the second heaviest support
from the tobacco industry, with $130,598 contributed to his campaigns and
an affiliated political action committee since 1991. He stopped taking
tobacco donations last year.

Tobacco interests contributed to congressional campaigns $131,613 more last
year than in 1995, the most recent non-election year. The sum is more than
double the total that tobacco companies and individuals affiliated with the
industry gave in 1993.