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Jul. 2, 2001

Access Politics

By J. Barlow Herget

RALEIGH - It’s a cliché in real estate that the three most important things in the business are location, location, location.

Likewise, one can argue that in today's politics, the three most important things are access, access, access.

The curtain was lifted recently for North Carolina citizens to get a peek at access in practice and why it's important in government, whether at City Hall, the state Legislature or Congress. The bright light example involved the ongoing saga of the friendly merger of two of North Carolina's most valuable institutions, First Union Bank of Charlotte and Wachovia Bank of Winston-Salem.

A third bank entered the bidding for Wachovia, Sun-Trust Bank of Georgia, which sent the two North Carolina banks to the legislature asking for protection from the Georgia interloper. North Carolina’s banks understand how today’s political system works, and they are good at playing by the rules. And the rules allow them to give generously to political campaigns.

For example, First Union’s Political Action Committee (PAC) gave $522,500 between 1989-1998 to various candidates. Bank of America in the same period gave $644,500. Wachovia’s PAC gave $308,650 to political candidates between 1999-2000. A 1994 study by the Institute of Southern Studies found that the combined banking industry contributed over $1 million annually to state political candidates.

Why do they do this? Are they simply good-hearted corporate citizens trying to help out struggling politicians? It’s tempting to respond with a cynical answer such as "the banks are buying votes." Sadly, that is what many Americans believe today. Indeed, according to a March poll by the N.C. Center for Voter Education, 91 percent of North Carolinians feel that the real winners in elections are those who have contributed to campaigns.

A more honest response comes from one of the state’s storied political contributors who is old enough and rich enough to say what he thinks. He is 81-year-old Walter Davis, and he once told a WUNC-FM interviewer: "One of the main reasons that I give money, outside of the fact that I think they're good people and deserve to be in office and will do a good job, is to get to talk to them. You need to keep the door open. If you can't talk to people, you can't get anything done." Access.

No doubt, Intel, the giant computer chip manufacturer, was thinking the same thing when it asked this spring to talk to Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser.

Intel’s executives were generous contributors to the Bush campaign, giving well over $171,000. Intel wanted federal approval of a business merger. Rove has nothing to do with business mergers but he knows the people who do. Rove at the time also held $100,000 in Intel stock. He talked to the executives and later received a thank-you note for his "hard work." The merger was approved, and Rove sold all his stocks including Intel in June.

His Intel stock sold for over $200,000. Why did he sell his stocks? To avoid appearances of conflicts of interest. Nice try.

Intel, like North Carolina's banks, simply wanted access to make its case. It’s like so much else in life. Remember when you were a child and you wanted your Mom’s permission to go see "Jaws," so you washed the dishes and cut the grass without being asked while your brother watched TV? Who got to go to the movie and who had to stay home and do chores?

Similarly, if you sell tires or insurance, you’re going to answer first the calls of your biggest customers. And if you give $4,000 in campaign contributions to your city councilor and your neighbor gives him nothing, to whom do you think the Councilor will talk and listen when both you and your neighbor call about a rezoning case? Access.

Few Americans (about one-sixth of one percent give more than $250 annually in political contributions) can afford to, or choose to, buy political access. The civics books didn’t mention that as a requirement for democracy. Unfortunately, that’s how the system works today. And it’s all legal. The North Carolina banks, by the way, talked to legislators one day, and legislation was approved the next.

Now that’s fast-talking access.

Barlow Herget is a businessman and former member of the Raleigh City Council.