Oct. 3, 2005
Follow the Money as Tom DeLay's Story Unfolds
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH – The indictment of Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay last week shines the 24/7 media spotlight on the money culture in Washington. Wash your hands because it's going to get dirty.
DeLay, nicknamed “The Hammer”, is not afraid to test the rules – and laws – that have tried to wring the money excesses from today's politics. He is accused of violating a Texas law that prohibits corporate spending on state candidates' campaigns.
(By the way, North Carolina also bans such corporate contributions.)
DeLay is at the center of another investigation. Jack Abramoff, a Washington power lobbyist also under indictment, is one of Delay's “closest and dearest friends”, according to DeLay himself. It was Abramoff who arranged to pay for Delay's infamous golfing trip to Scotland and other parts.
Abramoff's story reads like a John Grisham novel. In one chapter, Abramoff charges two Indian tribe clients $25,000 each just to meet with President George W. Bush.
In an email Abramoff describes the value of the meeting: “The exposure would be incredible and would be very helpful. One of the things we need to do is get the leaders of the tribe (ideally the Chief) in front of the President as much as possible.”
Over time, Abramoff suckered six tribes out of $66 million, all in the name of protecting the tribes' gambling casinos. Abramoff's monthly retainer to one tribe was $150,000.
The tribes became Abramoff's clients after his good friend Tom Delay, a big beneficiary of the tribes' political contributions, helped kill a bill that would have taxed Indian casinos.
At Abramoff's direction, the Indians also gave money to the lobbyist's private school and to fellow travelers such as former Christian Coalition Director Ralph Reed and conservative policy wonk Grover Norquist.
Abramoff is a greedy influence peddler, but not alone. A new and growing practice involves “earmarks” on appropriation bills. They are the new pork barrels. They're items typically tacked onto bills in the dark of night, outside the light of public debate.
Congress approved $32.7 billion in earmarks in 2004, according to a July report by Ken Silverstein in “Harper's Magazine". That's more than twice the amount in 2001 and three times the 1998 total.
The 2005 $286 billion Transportation Bill contained 6,376 earmarks worth about $24 billion. A typical earmark is the $1.2 million for lighting and steps at the Blue Ridge Music Center. Not exactly a highway project.
One company benefiting from earmarks is JRL, a Louisiana company that sells education software. Former House Appropriations Committee Chair Bob Livingston, R-La., now lobbies for the company, which has received $38 million in earmarks since about 1998. JRL is not an ingrate; its executives have paid $81,460 in targeted campaign contributions.
Both Republicans and Democrats use earmarks. Silverstein writes: “The most effective ally for the earmark-seeker is a lobbyist who is actually related, by blood or marriage, to a powerful member of an appropriations committee.”
On a larger scale, Congress and the White House refused an attempt to increase fuel efficiency standards on automobiles in the 2005 Energy Bill. Automakers have met such standards in the past, but they don't like them.
This year was no different. Auto industry executives and their lobbyists comprise one of the largest political donor groups in the country; they gave $105 million in PAC and soft money to federal candidates and national party committees since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. What they wanted, they got.
North Carolinians cannot be smug about the Washington scene. As campaign expenses have risen for legislative and statewide races here, watchdog groups such as Democracy North Carolina of Carrboro have followed the money.
Money talks here just as it does in Washington. A 2003 Democracy North Carolina bulletin pointed to the influence of the development industry on a state House bill that reclassified land for more growth. Homebuilders and realtors ranked as the top-two PACs in the 2002 election, giving $223,150 and $255,450 to legislative campaigns. They favored the bill.
It was approved, 91-24 in the N.C. House and 26-13 in the state Senate. Those who supported the bill received nine times as much in campaign contributions from development PACs as those who opposed the measure.
The current money culture in politics here and in Washington is better than when campaign contributions weren't reported and regulated. But is it good enough?
Barlow Herget is a former Raleigh city councilman and writes the "Follow the Money" column for the N.C. Center for Voter Education.
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