What Clinton and Dole Could Learn from the Teamsters
Jackson, Brooks
What Clinton and Dole Could Learn from the Teamsters A bold idea for reforming the parties: A payroll plan for small donations can curb the monied interests by Brooks Jackson My favorite goo-goo...
...And while the costs of raising and collecting the money would be minimal, the amounts raised could easily match those hauled in through the current big donor system...
...Perhaps parties have nothing worth a buck a week to offer voters...
...And unfortunately, matters are growing worse each year because direct mail is becoming more expensive and less effective...
...Adding more lines to tax withholding forms clutters them and costs money, he says...
...It's not fair, of course, to single out Andreas...
...Democratic and Republican party apparatchiks, instead of catching on to the power of the Perot/Brown messages, keep practicing a perverse twist on Robin Hood—sucking up to the rich to pay their own salaries...
...The United Auto Workers gave $235,300...
...About 7 percent of Teamsters members choose to give to its PAC...
...The Teamsters' system comes down to four words: a buck a week...
...They knock on doors and say to people, 'Look, this is what we care about...
...For example, PACs gave more than half the reelection money of the Democrats who control the House, including $1.2 million in the last election to House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt...
...The buck-a-week plan radically changed that...
...And that would require not fancy lunches with corporate execs, but door-to-door sales to convince average voters that the party is on their side...
...The party with the most appealing plans would raise the most money, and get the most votes...
...The time has come, I humbly submit, to give the buck-a-week plan the hearing it deserves...
...That's roughly two cents of every $10...
...those fatcat dinners consume only about a nickel of every dollar they generate...
...Dollar bill Here's how it works: Any Teamsters member who wants to give to the PAC signs a form, which goes to his employer's payroll office...
...Why not...
...The Tobacco Institute gave $125,477 to Republicans, $137,275 to Democrats...
...Besides all the bad publicity that soft money brings, there's the generally unappreciated fact that it's a headache to use...
...And Clinton has recently shied away from some of his tougher campaign rhetoric on the issue...
...In summer, the door-to-door army grows to about 1,800...
...If the buck-a-week plan were applied to national campaign finance, it would connect the parties to the people, and more importantly, take a bold step toward limiting the excessive influence of special interests...
...Tobacco gave $409,674 to Republicans and $125,346 to Democrats...
...That's because big donations cost little to raise...
...Similarly, Philip Morris gave $484,580 to the GOP and $222,500 to various Democratic committees...
...Perverse incentives would be reversed, and parties would find it profitable to behave more like public interest groups...
...Candidates could shift the humiliating and time-consuming task of fundraising to party professionals...
...But it is an endorsement of the way in which the Teamsters raise their political funds...
...Congress has waffled for years on campaign finance reform...
...Companies withholding money for the Teamsters' PAC, for example, send a bill for their added payroll processing costs...
...Despite the high entry fee, there are plenty of players...
...But if parties had an ample supply of clean money from rank-and-file members, politicians might feel less horrified about giving up existing sources of money...
...Careful drafting would be needed to deny the benefit of the payroll plan to kooky fringe groups trying to claim political party status while still recognizing the legitimate claims of bona fide minor parties, such as New York's Liberal and Conservative parties...
...And the National Education Association gave the Democrats $415,000...
...Democrats didn't discover the election-winning potential of that issue until the Pennsylvania special Senate election in 1991—and George Bush never caught on...
...You would have very, very strong institutional resistance within the IRS," predicts former IRS Commissioner Fred Goldberg...
...Lawmakers of both parties may secretly want to keep parties weak, allowing themselves more freedom to maneuver...
...On the other hand, small donations that comply with the federal limits can be used in direct support of the party's candidates for Congress or the White House...
...The largest cost involved would be organizing efforts to convince citizens to give in the first place—in other words, selling the party platform across the country...
...If the party can convince just 5 percent of those strong Democrats to give a buck a week, it would bring in nearly $200 million every two year election cycle...
...All employers would offer voluntary payroll withholding for employees who want to make donations to political parties...
...Campaign finance nirvana would be at hand...
...Any connection to the party's reluctance to shake up ossified public school bureaucracies...
...Ethanol, by the way, was just exempted from the Clinton administration's proposed energy tax—which in effect gives it an even bigger subsidy than it now enjoys relative to other fuels...
...Cash cowed Not only could the buck-a-week plan make it easier to get rid of soft money, but it would pave the way for, and ideally be combined with, other reforms as well...
...Just a handful of nillionaires and big corporations can afford to give 5100,000, the standard unit for those unregulated 'soft money" donations to the parties...
...With a payroll withholding system in place, the parties would be eager to get citizens to sign up as members...
...Such objections, however, pale when set against the major attractions...
...So, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, anyone out there: Steal my idea...
...It can only be spent legally for such indirect activities as compiling voter lists and buying generic commercials that say "vote Democratic" or "vote Republican," without naming any candidates...
...Unfortunately, party professionals are so addicted to big money politics that they claim all "party building" voter contact will stop without it...
...As a result, Citizen Action is closer to the voters than either party...
...They would have to convince the citizenry that they were about doing good...
...But the public has grown weary of lobbyists and special interest money...
...It's these kinds of questions we shouldn't have to ask...
...But Bob Beckel, a Democratic bigwig and former Mondale campaign manager, says that he, for one, is ready to give it a go: "Maybe we have to say this soft-money thing is so bad and so insidious, we just have to roll the dice...
...Before Presser began pushing the payroll plan, DRIVE was stuck in neutral: Despite a union membership of 1.9 million, the truckers had contributed a paltry $244,331 to DRIVE in the two years leading up to the 1980 elections...
...As things stand, a party that receives a $1 gift is actually losing money, because it costs more than $1 to process...
...The tobacco lobby likes to give to both parties...
...just the kind of special interest groups whose influence needs to be reduced, because they spend their money to buy access and push self-serving legislation at the expense of the rest of us...
...Using this democratic device, Presser, bless him, built the Teamsters' PAC into the mightiest political war chest of them all...
...The Teamsters have worked this out through collective bargaining, but it would be a relatively simple matter to set up a similar system for political parties through legislation...
...It makes a difference when somebody shows up on the doorstep who's obviously committed," explains Robert Brandon, Citizen Action's national executive director...
...The United Steelworkers of America gave $403,051 in soft money to various Democratic committees during the past two years...
...Take health care, for example," says Brandon...
...Give a buck a week to your party, get it back in your tax refund check...
...It's also hard to argue with the need for some fresh ideas...
...Sure, there are plenty of worthy campaign finance reform plans floating around Washington these days, but the one the truckers cooked up is the best I've seen yet...
...And it's not just ambassadorships at stake...
...A broad-based PAC is the closest thing to real democracy there is," says David Sweeney, the Teamsters' legislative director...
...The buck-a-week plan would, of course, face some minor obstacles...
...And it would create a powerful incentive for parties to reconnect with voters by expanding person-to-person, grassroots organizing efforts...
...Is that all because of politicians' eagerness to appease Midwestern grain farmers, or did Andreas's enormous political contributions help...
...But "mechanically, it can be done...
...That's far more than the record total that all parties' national committees received in the last election from all sources combined...
...Under the current system, only a small elite ;an afford to give $1,000 to a political candidate, the egal maximum at the federal level...
...In the 1992 elections, with the economy sagging and total Teamsters union membership dropping to fewer than 1.5 million, the PAC managed to raise $9.4 million for the two year cycle—still the King Kong of PACs...
...Citizen Action "is not a bad model for us," the new Democratic party chairman, David Wilhelm, told Rolling Stone recently...
...ambassador to France...
...Of course, none of this is intended as an endorsement of the Teamsters' PAC, or any other...
...Pac it in The worst part of today's system is that it practically forces parties and candidates to rely on a narrow elite...
...Such a door-to-door technique meshes nicely with the type of organizing the party professionals claim they now aspire to...
...They fail to grasp that big money is killing the parties, not building them...
...In the 1990 elections, DRIVE raised $10.5 million even as the number of Teamsters steadily declined...
...In addition, many Republicans see no problem with a 100 percent federal income-tax credit for small political donations, even though that would represent a substantial federal subsidy for House and Senate campaigns...
...The group fields about 1,000 canvassers year-round...
...Brown, formerly a wealthy special interest lobbyist himself, is now in the Clinton cabinet, and ¦'managing trustee" Pamela Harriman has been nominated to become U.S...
...Organized labor might squirm at the idea of sharing the payroll mechanism—a political golden goose if there ever was one—with parties...
...Currently, there are nearly 189 million Americans of voting age, and about 38 million adults consider themselves strong Democrats...
...I stole it from the Teamsters myself...
...They would have a selling job to do," says the Teamsters' Sweeney...
...Andreas and his company may, of course, be as interested in good government as the next guy, but they are also keen to make both Democrats and Republicans aware of the importance of continuing the generous taxpayer subsidies that help create an artificial market for ethanol, of which Archer Daniels Midland is the nation's main supplier...
...When all is said and done, [administration costs] might be between $75,000 and $100,000 a year," says Sweeney...
...The major barrier to getting rid of PACs, for example, is that they currently supply so much of the campaign money incumbents spend...
...Or that Jerry Brown, a born-again state party chairman, was able to outlast all Democrats but Clinton in the primaries by marketing himself with an 800 number and a nothing-over-$100 donation policy...
...While the national parties have become exclusive clubs for big donor lobbyists, corporate executives, and millionaires, the Teamsters' political action committee (PAC) is supported almost exclusively by rank-and-file members who voluntarily donate just one dollar every week directly from their paychecks...
...So, if Congress won't go for serious public financing, why not couple the buck-a-week plan with a 100 percent tax credit capped at $52 annually...
...How else to account for Ross Perot's 19 percent of the vote last year, even though he was widely thought to be a bit loony...
...The parties might imitate the successful door-to-door technique used by the public interest group Citizen Action, which claims about 3 million members in 32 states...
...The buck-a-week plan, on the other hand, would give the public the type of democratic politics it demands and deserves...
...Do those donations have anything to do with Democrats' increasingly protectionist approach on trade issues...
...Any party that can't market a deal like that deserves to lose elections...
...Stronger parties mean relatively weaker special interests...
...We've been canvassing and working on May 1993/The Washington Monthly 49 this issue for the last eight years...
...Party professionals might be surprisingly willing to give up soft money if only they had an attractive alternative...
...Will you become a member of our organization?'" That personal contact with voters would make it profitable for parties to emphasize positions that ordinary citizens see as appealing, sensible, and relevant to their lives...
...The buck-a-week payroll plan, however, would radically change those economics...
...In fact, disgust with big money politics goes a long way toward explaining the popular disillusionment with political parties...
...What Clinton and Dole Could Learn from the Teamsters A bold idea for reforming the parties: A payroll plan for small donations can curb the monied interests by Brooks Jackson My favorite goo-goo reformer was Jackie Presser...
...48 The Washington Monthly/May 1993 This one swift measure wipes out a number of )roblems...
...Better candidates would run for Congress if the parties provided enough money, and they would stand a better chance of winning...
...Not to be outdone, Ron Brown, during his stewardship of the Democratic party, set the price of admission to the DNC's "Managing Trustee" program at $200,000...
...Small donations are much more expensive because raising them requires mass mailings and telemarketing, gobbling up perhaps 40 percent of the typical $50 check...
...And it's a reform that is relatively inexpensive to implement and could be enacted regardless of what happens to more controversial proposals, such as spending limits, taxpayer subsidies for congressional candidates, or the elimination of PACs...
...But this system does more than merely raise steady and staggering sums...
...Any odds on whether Congress will raise tobacco taxes by more than a token amount, even to pay for health coverage...
...A few liberals still equate the notion of strong parties with Tammany Hall corruption...
...There are no guarantees...
...A fix for urban schools...
...Some, coinciden-tally, were made ambassadors by President Bush...
...Democrats and Republicans remain miles apart on the issue, and Republicans can probably block any purely partisan plan with a Senate filibuster...
...Do voters want health care reform...
...Thanks to the payroll withholding plan, the payoff from a successful fundraising appeal would be a steady stream of income—$52 a year from each donor—that would roll in automatically, steadily, dependably...
...Consider the Teamsters' PAC, which is officially called the "Democratic Republican Independent Voter Education Committee" (DRIVE...
...Consider Dwayne Andreas and the company he heads, Archer Daniels Midland...
...That's because when it comes to political fundraising, the Teamsters' operation is, financially speaking, not only cleaner than the campaign finance efforts of either the Democratic or Republican party, but stronger at the grassroots level...
...And the United Auto Workers gets about 27 percent of its members to give to its PAC through a similar buck-a-week checkoff system...
...And the donation rate might even turn out to be higher...
...Democrats could conceivably push the contribution rate high enough to get rid of funding from millionaires, PACs, corporations, and labor unions—and still have plenty left to take over full funding of all the general election campaigns of its candidates for the House and Senate, freeing the candidates from the need for special interest money...
...Business groups would object reflexively to another federal mandate and small businesses in particular would seek an exemption, claiming paperwork headaches...
...The money is then deducted from the member's paycheck, along with union dues, taxes, and the rest...
...The handling costs would be nominal...
...But more and more, the public is asking exactly these questions...
...But using Citizen Action again as a model illustrates how real party building can actually pay for itself, and then some...
...When little people get together to pool their bucks, that's what democracy is all about...
...At the pinnacle of the Republican party finance machine, for example, is "Team 100," a coterie of real-estate developers, Wall Street dealmakers, and Dther rich folks who funnel $100,000 checks to the Republican National Committee...
...They are everywhere...
...Would it work...
...The IRS would collect the money for parties just as it now administers payroll withholding for federal income taxes, Social Security, and Medicare...
...In fact, the buck-a-week plan would be worth trying even if no other reforms are enacted...
...If the Teamsters can raise nearly $10 million every two years from a base of 1.4 million members, think what the Democratic and Republican parties could do with their much broader bases...
...It's hard to argue with that...
...People are appreciative of the information you give them, and the fact that somebody is out there fighting the good fight...
...Corrupt as the late Teamsters boss probably was, he practiced a form of good government that Bill Clinton and Bob Dole ought to imitate...
...PACs are Brooks Jackson is a correspondent with Cable News Network's Special Assignment Unit and the author o/Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process...
...It gave nearly $1.1 million to the Republican party during the 1991-1992 election cycle and $277,500 to the Democratic party...
...The Republicans have already moved in this direction by persuading many of their regular donors to allow the party to make an automatic, periodic debit to their personal checking accounts, just the way many people now make their mortgage payments...
...There could be lots more money for both parties...
...And those organizers sign up more than enough dues-paying members to pay their own salaries, which are generally under $300 per week, plus bonuses based on performance...
...RJR-Nabisco gave $502,955 to the Republicans and $321,000 to the Democrats...
Vol. 25 • May 1993 • No. 5
