Outrageous! Politicians Kissing Up for Cash

When politicians and big donors get cozy, the rest of us end up paying for their sweetheart deals.

Tax-Funded Campaigns

You don't need a map to know that Florida is a long way from Alaska. But that didn't stop Don Young, a Republican and Alaska's lone Congressman, from making a February 2005 trip to the Sunshine State for a fund-raiser that added $40,000 to his political coffers. Among the hosts: a wealthy Florida developer with an interest in a transportation bill drawn up by a committee Young chaired.

Shortly after the event, that bill got a little tweak -- slipped in after Congress approved the legislation but before the President signed it. Ten million dollars originally meant for general improvements to Florida's Interstate 75 was earmarked for building an interchange at a specific spot, along Coconut Road. The site just happens to sit near 4,000 acres owned by that Florida developer -- property that's likely to soar in value if the interchange is built.

Young hasn't commented on whether he was behind the last-minute change to the bill. But it sure seems like he was trading $10 million of your taxes to help a rich guy get even richer in exchange for feeding his campaign fund. It's yet another example of how big-money interests are doing their best to drown out those whose only influence is the old-fashioned vote. "We've come to a point where no candidate for office can be competitive without a personal fortune or access to many wealthy people," says Massie Ritsch of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. "When you follow the money and the tiny fraction of mostly wealthy Americans who donate it, you understand gas prices, health care, student loans, taxation, defense contracting and pretty much every other policy in a whole new light."

Look at the 2008 White House race, shaping up to be the most money-soaked ever. The cost of TV advertising alone could reach $3 billion. That puts huge pressure on candidates to take cash from wherever -- whomever -- they can.

And that’s how we wind up with donors like one named Carlyn who last year gave $2,300 to Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Carlyn's donation wouldn't be remarkable -- except that she's two years old. Yup, still in diapers. Obama also got money from a seven- and eight-year-old brother and sister (each gave $4,600). And his campaign, which said it would return the donations and stop taking money from kids, wasn't alone in drawing pint-size financial backers. Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain also took checks from kids.

Bundling Campaign Money

Obviously, sneaky grown-ups are at work here. Donating in a child's name is a way to get around campaign finance laws that limit individuals to giving $2,300 to a candidate in the Presidential primaries and the same sum in the general election. That isn't nearly enough money to get someone seeking a favor into the room with a top candidate. So big donors have found a way to bypass the limits. It's called bundling. Contributors collect from friends and associates, personally deliver what they've gathered to a campaign, then take credit for the lump sum. Writing a check in the name of your child is a creative way to jack up the total.

One notorious bundler, Norman Hsu, was a con artist and fugitive when he became a big Democratic donor. After the media exposed him, Hillary Clinton's campaign returned $850,000 he'd raised for her. That's almost 370 times what he -- or you -- could legally give on his own.

"If I go out and bundle a million dollars for you and turn that money over to you, that's in essence the same as if I were giving you a million-dollar contribution," says Fred Wertheimer of the watchdog group Democracy 21. "These huge sums are the kind of money that can buy access and corrupt government decision making -- which is why contributions have been limited." Exactly. The limits are supposed to keep one person from having too much influence. But the potential rewards are so great that donors are increasingly willing to bypass the rules. A recent Public Citizen study found the number of bundlers has skyrocketed from 269 in the 2000 race to more than 2,520 in this year's.

Another way bundlers skirt the rules: pressuring others to donate -- then repaying them. In one case, Michigan lawyer Geoffrey Fieger was indicted for pressing employees to write checks totaling $127,000 to John Edwards's 2004 Presidential campaign and then reimbursing the givers later, sometimes via bogus performance bonuses. (Fieger denies the charges; the Edwards campaign was not cited for any wrongdoing.)

The real outrage is how these campaign donations, whatever form they come in, affect the way your tax money is spent. Consider a recent Seattle Times investigation into the 2,700 earmarks in the 2007 defense spending bill. The newspaper was able to link nearly half of those pork barrel projects to donors who'd given money to the lawmakers sponsoring them.

In one case, three members of Congress from Washington State fought for a $4.5 million earmark to buy an 85-foot speedboat for the U.S. Navy, a boat the Navy didn't want, never used and wound up giving away. It turned out that each of the three -- Senator Patty Murray and Congressmen Norm Dicks and Brian Baird, all Democrats -- got about $15,000 from various executives of Guardian Marine International, the shipbuilder that made the speedboat. Surprise, surprise.

Now, these politicians say there's no link between the contributions and the earmarks. But think of former Congressman Robert Ney. He traded his support on legislation for favors, including campaign donations, from lobbyists. Convicted of bribery, he's in prison now.

Some want to take all private donations out of the system and have the government fund elections. That may be a tough sell. But the campaign-finance game needs fixing -- and fast. Cracking down on bundling and adding more transparency would be a good start. Maybe fund-raisers hosted by big donors, like the one in Florida for Don Young, should be banned. Unless we do something, more of your money is headed to Coconut Road.