HoustonChronicle.com - Panel considers change in rules on campaign funds

There's no question campaigning can be hard work. Now the Federal Election Commission is considering letting candidates pay themselves for it.

Billed as an effort to encourage more people to run for office, two proposals before the commission would allow candidates to pay themselves from their campaign funds to make up earnings they lose because of being off their regular jobs.

In other action Thursday, four campaign finance watchdog groups announced they would file a complaint with the commission accusing Democratic and Republican party committees of setting up organizations to try to get around the nation's new campaign finance law.

The complaint says the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic National Committee are using new partisan groups to skirt the soft money ban. It asks the FEC to investigate and "expeditiously stop the illegal activity."

Democracy 21, Common Cause, the Center for Responsive Politics and The Campaign and Media Legal Center filed the complaint.