Nice PAC You've Got Here...A Pity if Anything Should Happen to It
Dockser, Amy
NICE PAC YOU'VE GOT HERE... Sen. Rudy Boschwitz prides himself on being accessible to all his constituents, often pointing out that his home telephone number is listed in the Minneapolis phone...
...It's continuous pressure...
...President Reagan had agreed to host a reception for him, but PAC responses to the $1,000-a-plate function were lukewarm...
...Of course it should come as no surprise that large contributors enjoy greater access to legislators than those who confine themselves to the more pedestrian forms of support like voting...
...Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Project for Investigative Reporting on Money in Politics...
...A variation on this theme is to play the jealous younger sibling, asking the PAC: if you gave to Congressman Blowhard, why can't you give to me...
...now politicians demand money as the price for access...
...Many PACs complained that Senate Finance Committee chairman Robert Packwood used his position and the impending tax reform bill to raise campaign funds...
...This summer, after press reports revealed the practice, it stopped...
...A final reason for high-pressure fund-raising is the need to maintain a certain lifestyle...
...Rudy Boschwitz prides himself on being accessible to all his constituents, often pointing out that his home telephone number is listed in the Minneapolis phone book...
...A hefty war chest can help them avoid contested elections altogether by scaring off potential opponents...
...The same tactics apply toward honoraria, the gifts organizations give legislators as "speaking fees!' One executive at an electric company says, "Many times candidates call us up and say, 'I'd like to come by and see your plant.' That means `invite us to give a talk and pay us an honorarium,' and we usually do...
...The potential for corruption is enormous and more people are driven over the edge...
...If you don't contribute, they don't return your calls!' The fund-raising pitch can be pretty blunt...
...Charles Frazier, Washington director of the National Farmer's Organization, a small PAC, says he gets as many as 100 invitations a week, ten times the number he used to...
...Typically, a staff member goes to the Federal Election Commission, copies the quarterly PAC contribution reports, and makes note of the congressmen on the same committees as the boss...
...David Boren, author of legislation to limit PAC contributions...
...Not coincidentally, 83 percent of all PAC contributions to House races went to incumbents...
...now the candidates demand money as the price for access...
...In general, PACs are likely to be kept informed of the date of the next fund raiser—even if the PAC doesn't share the concerns or positions of the legislator...
...One California legislator told a California commission investigating electoral reforms that during one of the panel's hearings, instead of listening to the testimony, he had been making lists of who might contribute $1,000 to his next fund raiser...
...The PAC solicitation process has become routinized and mechanized...
...Boschwitz and Sen...
...The days of innocent congressmen being corrupted by nefarious PACs and wealthy constituents are gone...
...tells a similar tale...
...The late Rep...
...So you call ten PACs the day before the vote and invite them all to a fund raiser...
...They told us how to go to a bank PAC, for example, and tell them that the savings and loan and insurance PACs were already on board, and that they should contribute too or they would miss out," says Sen...
...Accepting money leads to an addiction...
...This ploy requires some homework...
...The couriers were instructed not to leave an office until they had a response...
...After the 1982 elections, successful Democratic senators gave a workshop for those up for reelection in 1984 on how to influence PACs...
...Legislators now hound PACs with such intensity and persistence that one can almost feel sorry for the PACs...
...So then you contribute to his campaign because you don't want to be on a shit list...
...Incumbents seeking job security now farm the increasingly fertile PAC fields...
...If a PAC or lobbyist comes into your office or wants an appointment, you tell them 'you gave $500 to that senator and only $250 to me...
...But Boschwitz's access stamps illustrate a new brazenness among politicians...
...It's your choice to have nice dinners, hire caterers, and be served by guys in jackets, but that's a heck of an expense...
...The Consumer Federation of America, for example, this year received several mailings from Rep...
...PACs might not believe their contribution will put a legislator in their pockets, but they want to make sure that he or she is not ...A PITY IF ANYTHING SHOULD HAPPEN TO IT How politicians shake down the special interests by Amy Dockser Legislators now hound PACs with such intensity and persistence that one can almost feel sorry for the PACs...
...Phillip Burton warned against the current situation during the debates about the 1974 electoral reforms...
...The Federation gave Skeen a lifetime rating of 14 percent on consumer issues, yet his letters always begin, "Because your organization and I share the same concerns and we have worked together on issues affecting my constituents and your members, I thought you'd be interested in the enclosed material ." Bucking opponents The principal reason for this aggressiveness is obvious and has been well-covered by the media: the cost of campaigns has skyrocketed...
...The real estate industry was among the industries most petrified in 1985 and 1986 by the prospect of tax reform...
...But during much of 1986 some constituents had more access than others...
...You can live a fancy life in D.C...
...It's annoying to come home after work and find a whole mailbox full of them," Frazier says...
...just turning down one senator, but any others he's raisins money for...
...It's a blackmail situation and even the lobbyists and PACs realize it's out of control," says Boren...
...A friendly phone call...
...One PAC representative crumpled the card up and threw it in the courier's face in disgust...
...So Abdnor hired couriers to go to 40 PAC offices and present a card soliciting their contributions...
...If you say you can't come to an event because you'll be out of town, they say, 'We'll tell the senator you don't want to contribute to his campaign,' " says one political consultant who used to manage a PAC...
...Senate races in 1986 was $140 million, twice the amount in 1980...
...The Journal quoted one Wall Street lobbyist as saying, "Nothing is enough...
...We are the ones who are going to be corrupted," Burton said...
...The National Asphalt Pavement Association disbanded its PAC four years ago, in part, they say, because they were tired of being swamped with requests...
...If you're a legislator it has got to cross your mind: a rent control bill is coming up, and it's important to the real estate brokers, landowners, and developers," says Roger Carrick, an aide to former California Gov...
...swayed by an economic competitor...
...House candidates spent $146 million in 1986, compared to $117 million in 1980...
...When members start raising money for other people, saying, 'I want you to give money to my friend,' it makes everyone uncomfortable," says Boren...
...Keith Abbott, finance director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, advises Democratic candidates for the Senate to spend at least 50 percent of their time raising money...
...The Wall Street Journal recently showed how New York Sen...
...If your senator is the fourth ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, for example, you get the chairman's list of contributors and then gauge your senator's worth accordingly, proportionate to the chairman's...
...John Q. Public has always suspected that his call might be returned more slowly than John D. Rockefeller's...
...More than ever before, legislators focus on raising money, now spending as much time fundraising as legislating...
...The total amount spent on U.S...
...What bothers me most, though, is that some congressmen have my home address and they solicit me there...
...I would guess that 99 percent of PAC contributions are in response to candidates' requests," says Elaine Mullican, election counsel to the Senate Rules Committee...
...James Abdnor was involved in a tough primary race...
...That's one reason more than 95 percent of the incumbents won their last election...
...In addition, candidates with extra money can gain themselves power in Congress by using their campaign committees or personal PACS to funnel contributions, the 1980s equivalent of Lyndon Johnson greasing his path to congressional power by funneling campaign contributions to colleagues...
...Bob Graham's campaign corresponded regularly with more than 1,000 PACs, sending them the latest polls, FEC reports, and press clips...
...That one rebuff notwithstanding, the strategy succeeded: the fund raiser raised $225,000...
...But it's like taking drugs...
...But most incumbents aggressively raise their money not to finance tough elections, but to avoid them...
...Candidates now set up their own PACs, raise money, and distribute it among their colleagues, winning friends along the way...
...Jerry Brown...
...Seven months ago, then-Sen...
...It used to be that PACs gave money in order to assure access...
...To raise money you have to ask for it, and if you ask more, you get more...
...The bigger the fish, the more bait he or she can demand...
...Alfonse D'Amato, former chairman of the securities subcommittee, used his ability to block legislation on regulating junk bonds to elicit $33,000 from employees of Drexel Burnham Lambert, one of the leading promoters of such bonds...
...It is now the politicians who aggressively pursue the special interests...
...I know staffers for congressmen that call ahead when their boss is coming into a town and tell PACs and corporations: 'he needs honoraria while he's there, and he expects to get them...
...One strategy they discussed was playing one PAC against another...
...The only reason that's not called bribery is because the congressmen are the ones that decide what constitutes bribery!' The rise of candidate-sponsored PACs have added yet another new twist...
...Rep...
...The fish go fishing The phenomenal growth of political action committees has been well documented, their Amy Dockser is a Cambridge writer...
...Charles Grassley both keep lists of the PACs that have contributed to them on their desks for easy reference...
...The strategies for hitting up PACs have grown increasingly imaginative and bold...
...there were roughly 4,400 PACs at last count...
...Packwood, for example, asked real estate brokers to hold "real estate industry nights" to raise money for him...
...Those who had given at least $1,000 to Boschwitz's campaign during the previous five years became members of his "Washington Club" and were given a booklet of blue "special access stamps ." Boschwitz's staff was told to respond to mail with special access stamps faster than the rest of the letters...
...If they know Shell is going to one member of the committee, they call up Shell and tell them that their guy's vote is just as important as other committee members'," recalls a former administrative assistant to a Republican congressman...
...Congressional staff members keep close tabs on organizations that write or call the legislator, storing any names in the potential contributors file of their computer...
...Andrew Jacobs Jr...
...You're placed in a position of not It used to be that PACs gave money in order to assure access...
...or not," says Jacobs...
...perniciousness well noted...
...The enemy is going to be us!' When politicians start to see a dollar sign behind every vote, every phone call, every solicitation, those other factors sometimes weighed during governance, like the public good and equal access to government, become less and less important...
...What has been less noted is that candidates now shake down the PACs...
...We still get ten invitations a day," says the organization's president, John Gray...
...Joe Skeen...
...Politicians need money to keep up with lifestyles that aren't really necessary...
Vol. 18 • January 1987 • No. 12
