Why Mitch McConnell should know better - campaign fund corruption in his home state of Kentucky

Washington Monthly, Oct, 1997 by Michelle Cottle

On March 30,1992, the FBI overplayed its hand when it attempted to flip Bill McBee. The stunned lobbyist initially agreed to investigators' terms but later that night, deciding he couldn't incriminate his friends and colleagues, leaked the news to a couple of people at a party honoring him as Kentucky's Lobbyist of the Year. With its cover blown, the FBI decided to go public. On March 31, the next-to-last day of the legislative session, federal agents descended onto the floor of the state capitol, interviewing legislators and handing out subpoenas for travel and campaign finance records. The undercover phase of BOPTROT was officially over.

The Bigger Picture

Lest horse racing come across as a uniquely corrupting force in this story, it bears mentioning that investigators uncovered monkey business throughout the legislature. For instance, two senators pleaded guilty to accepting illegal campaign contributions from lobbyists for Humana Inc. in exchange for their votes on a bill favored by the health-care giant. (One of the senators insisted he had always intended to return the contribution but that it had simply slipped his mind) Similarly, a member of the Senate Banking Committee was convicted of conspiracy and attempted extortion for trying to recoup money he said had been promised him for his vote on a 1984 bill loosening state banking regulations. The senator was caught on tape announcing to his alleged co-conspirators, "By God ... I need me a little grubstake."

Indeed, the corruption in the BOP Committees (subsequently renamed the Licensing and Occupations Committees) seems to have been more the rule than the exception. The problem wasn't with any particular group of lawmakers or lobbyists so much as with the entire system. "It got to be considered just fine for the lobbyists and special interests to wine and dine members of the legislature," says Richard Beliles, the chairman of Kentucky Common Cause and head of the state's League of Women Voters. The various PACs had sunk huge amounts of money into the state campaign coffers over the years, notes Beliles, and "this whole [scandal] was about the dominance of money both in getting elected and then in getting the perks while you were in office?"

In the pre-BOPTROT days, confirms Rep. Joe Clarke, the 27-year House veteran who succeeded Don Blandford as speaker following Blandford's indictment, lawmakers and lobbyists were practically living together in some cases, staying up all night playing cards in an atmosphere that resembled nothing so much as a college fraternity. Before tough ethics restrictions were passed in 1993, recalls Clarke, "legislators didn't have to pay for meals at all. There were two or three big parties every night [hosted by lobbying groups]. You could eat and drink more than you could ever dream of." Food, it seems, was an important part of the culture. At Flynn's restaurant and bar, lobbyists set up tabs and gave the management standing instructions to put legislators' meals on their tickets. "I had to quit going over there," recalls Clarke, "because you'd go eat your dinner or lunch, and owner Pete Flynn would come over and say, 'That's already been paid for." Nor were perks restricted to outside of the office. "There was always food in the House leadership offices," says Clarke, "and everybody knew the speaker wasn't buying the stuff. Lobbyists would bring in a big ham -- Nobody thought anything of it."