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Phipps to resign todayAnticipating indictment of top aide and more federal pressure, Agriculture Commissioner will leave State Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps will resign today, she said in an interview Thursday night. Phipps, mired in federal and state investigations that have revealed illegal fund raising in her 2000 election campaign, made the decision shortly after her top aide, Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Mike Blanton, learned that he probably will be indicted today. "It's now come to a point where the investigation is starting to take a lot of my time," Phipps said in an interview at her lawyers' downtown Raleigh office....

<p>May 1 - The vicious Republican primary battle between challenger Jay Webber and State Sen. Robert J. Martin (R-Morris Plains) grew even more heated today when Webber accused Martin of misusing his campaign funds.</p> <p>Pointing to reports filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), Webber said Martin has used his election account for "self-aggrandizement," paying nearly $39,000 in tuition costs for an advanced degree from Columbia University, and over $25,000 for expenses related to his automobile.</p>

He may have parted with his political career but, leading Democrats say, Sen. Robert G. Torricelli is determined not to part with more than $5 million in campaign cash. Several sources close to the retiring U.S. senator say only a small fraction of Torricelli's money will be spent to boost his Democratic stand-in, former three-term Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, who took over Torricelli's damaged campaign two weeks ago. "Bob's already done more than his share for other Democrats; now he's thinking of himself,'' said one former Torricelli aide. "Frank Lautenberg is a millionaire. He's got more than enough money to...

WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party planned Monday to take its battle against Democrat Frank Lautenberg's New Jersey Senate campaign to the Federal Election Commission, seeking to bar the Democrats' former candidate from giving his campaign money to the party or Lautenberg. The National Republican Senatorial Committee was preparing to file a complaint with the commission contending that because Sen. Robert Torricelli is no longer a candidate, he must refund any leftover contributions for next month's election to his donors, NRSC general counsel Alex Vogel said. The NRSC will ask the commission to block Torricelli from transferring his campaign fund to...

LOS ANGELES –– The Democrats' war chest for their effort to take back control of Congress was fattened when Barbra Streisand emerged from semiretirement to headline a Hollywood gala that raised some $6 million. -- Streisand's show set a fund-raising record for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said spokeswoman Jenny Backus. -- Draped in a sweeping, metallic green gown, she also performed her hit "The Way We Were," with altered lyrics to convey that she missed a Democratic Congress and administration. Democrats have a one-seat Senate edge, but the GOP holds the House, with 222 Republicans, 210 Democrats and two...

Prominent national Democrats now regard Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey as their party's most vulnerable Senate incumbent, prompting concern that his endangered seat might cost Democrats control of the Senate.Many Democrats said they had expected Mr. Torricelli to more easily overcome his ethics troubles. Instead, his predicament has roiled the party and stirred resentment toward him among fellow Democrats. Some of them say that Mr. Torricelli's wounds are self-inflicted and that he opened himself to attack — not to mention gave ammunition to his Republican challenger, Douglas R. Forrester — by engaging in behavior that led the...

<p>Little more than a week after he became the subject of an advertising attack by Gov. Gray Davis, Republican challenger Bill Simon has responded with tough new ads, including one hitting the governor's fund raising.</p> <p>Two new Simon campaign commercials are scheduled to begin today in the Bay Area -- with the ad lambasting the governor's fund-raising practices scheduled to air starting next week, KTVU Channel 2's "Ten O'Clock News" reported Wednesday night.</p>

WASHINGTON -- The Republican team of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney is closing in on $90 million raised for the party for this fall's congressional elections. That's nine times the take so far of the marquee Democratic draw, Bill Clinton. The disparity illustrates the Democrats' need to develop a fund-raising star, besides Clinton, who routinely could raise $1 million or more just by showing up. If Bush and Cheney continue at their current pace, it sets up a potentially immense financial advantage for Republicans in the November fight for congressional control, experts say. "If the Republicans beat history...

<p>BOSTON -- What began as a weighty constitutional battle has degenerated into a squabble over Salvatore DiMasi's eight, faded flower-print chairs.</p> <p>Ever since he moved into his office two years ago, Rep. DiMasi, the majority leader of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, has been trying to swap the chairs, which he inherited along with mauve curtains from the previous occupant, a female legislator. But he has found no takers, and the chairs are still around his conference table.</p>

Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist announced this afternoon that he will dissolve his campaign fund and pay the entire $375,000 settlement in Marilyn Figueroa's sexual harassment complaint against the city. If his campaign funds do not cover the entire settlement amount, Norquist said, he will pay the remainder out of his own pocket. In his latest campaign finance report in February, Norquist reported that he had $245,166 in his campaign fund through December 2001. "There will be no cost to the taxpayers," Norquist said at a short news conference Monday afternoon. "I believe this is the right thing to do....