GOP IN CONGRESS IS ATTRACTING CAMPAIGN DOLLARS

Reports are in on campaign contributions flowing to members of the new 104th Congress, the first session of that body with a Republican majority since Dwight Eisenhower's first term as president. Not surprisingly, the Republicans are doing well in the race for campaign dollars, having raked in $27 million of $44 million raised by all members from Jan. 1 through June 30. The total for all members of both parties is a record and is 38 percent higher than the figure for a comparable period in 1993, when incumbents raised $38.5 million.

A few Democrats continue to show well in this department too. This category includes Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, the House minority leader, a fund-raising powerhouse since he came to Congress in 1976. Gephardt led all congressmen with $1.2 million in receipts, even though he is no longer in the majority. This total easily outdistanced the second-place finisher, Speaker Newt Gingrich, who took in $$885,000.

All these figures represent a mix of both individual and PAC money. Don't look here for a denunciation of PACs so common in those decrying the state of campaign finance. Voluntary political action committees are an efficient mechanism for people of similar interests and inclinations, many of them of meager means, to pool resources and exert some measure of influence on the outcome of campaigns. We have a good campaign money disclosure law on the books. Indeed, that is how we have the information the Associated Press reported this week.

Sure, money follows power. And the Republicans, still getting used to the majority status denied them for so long, are reaping the benefits of that old adage. Many will see this as evidence of continuing strong public support for House Republicans who, in unprecedented fashion, laid out a campaign Contract With America last fall and largely kept faith with it (and with voters) as they governed this past winter and spring.

Campaign contributors are doing what contributors always do: Giving to those currently in power, with the expectation that, in the main, they will stay there. If Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole can push House-approved contract items through the upper chamber this fall, that is very likely what will happen when voters go to the polls in the fall of 1996.