Apr. 29, 2002
Outsiders Influence N.C. Races
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH – Recently, the top-rated political drama “The West Wing” gave viewers a peek into the backroom of campaign financing.
The segment involved a potential political embarrassment for the President. Members of the President’s staff sought the help of a Southern congressman who was facing a difficult re-election. In his previous election, the congressman’s campaign had run short of money. A West Wing aide was dispatched to meet the congressman at a bar in Atlanta’s Hartsfield airport.
When the two met, the aide asked for the favor, and the congressman complained about his upcoming campaign. The aide shoved an envelope across the bar to the surprised congressman who said, "There better not be any money in this."
The aide replied, "No money, but just as good. There are three names and phone numbers. Call them. They will take your call and you won’t have to worry about running out of campaign money."
A journalist friend and his wife were watching the show and the wife, shocked, asked, "Can they do that?" They can do it and they do. It’s legal and politics as currently practiced.
The new Campaign Reform Law makes it illegal for wealthy contributors to funnel "soft money" campaign donations into designated campaigns through the national political parties as in "The West Wing" scene. But the practice of contributions coming from outside a candidate's district or state will remain.
And North Carolinians don’t like it. "It’s something we1ve researched," says Chris Heagarty, executive director of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education. "The North Carolina public has a strong distaste for out-of-state money in political campaigns."
In a Center survey, voters were asked about the use of out-of-state money in state legislative races and 67 percent of the respondents disapproved. Such money, says Heagarty, logically prompts the question, "Why is someone [from out of state] making a large contribution without expecting something in return?"
Bob Hall of Democracy South, a Carrboro nonprofit group that monitors state campaign financing, traces the trend back to the 1980s. National direct mail solicitations helped finance Republican Sen. John East’s upset victory over Democratic incumbent Robert Morgan. The 1984 U.S. Senate race between then Gov. Jim Hunt and Sen. Jesse Helms collected thousands if not millions of dollars from people outside North Carolina.
A state director in one of the presidential elections of the decade told Hall in 1993 that "they had so much money coming into the state they didn’t know what to do with it."
Hall believes, however, that it is since the 1992 Elections that the flow of out-of-state money has become "more apparent." This year, for example, there is as much interest outside the state as inside over Helms’ successor.
Democrats control the U.S. Senate by one vote. Helms, President Bush and the National Republican Party have cast aside primary neutrality to support the well-known Elizabeth Dole.
(Some observers believe it was more than political goodwill that caused the national Republican Party in Washington to send $200,000 to help retire Richard Vinroot’s campaign debt from his 2000 gubernatorial bid. Shortly before the gift, Vinroot, withdrew from the Senate race.)
Thanks to election disclosure regulations, citizens can see where the money comes from. For example, an analysis by the Greensboro News & Record’s Eric Dyer recently found that roughly 55 percent of Dole’s contributions from individuals "originated outside the state." She has raised $3 million so far. Democratic Senate candidate Erskine Bowles collected 30 percent of his $1.7 million came from out-of-state supporters. Dole’s and Bowles’ opponents have also collected out-of-state money.
Indeed, campaigns have become so costly that it is routine, especially for Congressional, Senate and Gubernatorial candidates, to go begging outside the state for money. Sen. John Edwards, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, recently reported raising a $100,000 soft-money contribution from a Texas lawyer and $50,000 each from a Florida lawyer and a New York law firm.
While Senate and congressional candidates decide national issues and thus, can defend raising money nationally, their state and local counterparts face closer examination on such contributions. For example, Heagarty points to the record of out-of-state gaming interests. In 1996, the industry and its lobbyists donated about $74,000 to parties and candidates in the state and $418,000 four years.
Last year, even mayoral candidates Bill Bell in Durham and Paul Coble in Raleigh received campaign help from Washington, sent by their respective national political parties.
Like it or not, out-of-state money is a fact in North Carolina politics, which begs the question, "What’s it buying?"
Barlow Herget is a writer and former member of the Raleigh City Council.
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