Which Newt abolished after the '94 sweep, along with other groups funded out of House money. Doug <<<<<>>>>>
dsg was, in fact, first of what would become more than 100 congressional caucuses, many of which began springing up in 1970s..
re. above, funding prohibited: yes --- groups abolished: no
most formally organized of these are called 'legislative service organizations' (lso), prior to republican take-over in mid-90s, lso were allowed to pay staff with monies transferred from members' office accounts...
generally speaking, lso were weakened, but only three actually dissolved, most dramatic effect was probably impact on congressional black & hispanic caucuses (surprise, surprise)...
gingrich was clearly driven by desire to centralize/consolidate power, eliminating funding was intended to do shut down chief lso activity - develop/provide alternative sources of information (although critics of various ideological stripes had argued that caucuses contributed to house fragmentation), moreover, more than few lsos were/are bipartisan (based on such factors as regional/resource commonalities)... michael hoover
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