The sleaze in the statehouses - inadequate state campaign finance laws

Washington Monthly, April, 1993 by Scott Greenberger

Inside the fortress nestled in the woods of Fairfax County, Virginia, that is Mobil Oil Corporation's world headquarters, four company officials sat at a conference table and tried to explain what they didn't do to kill a clean air bill supported by environmental groups and more than two thirds of Virginia voters.

The measure, slated to take effect in 1997, would have required all new cars sold in Virginia to meet California's tough emission standards--a move that would cost the oil companies billions of dollars. Thus it's reasonable to believe Virginia state Senator Edward M. Holland, the sponsor of the bill, when he says that the industry financed a "carefully coordinated, major lobbying effort" to ensure the bill would fail. But to hear the Mobil execs tell it, that little bill died all by itself:

"There was no advertising campaign," said one, "and our public relations campaign amounted to this: Responding to queries, always being there to talk to whoever asked to talk to us--that's our public relations campaign."

"There really wasn't any grand strategy," said another.

"The enormous campaign that we mounted amounted to Ben and two very bright technicians," added a third.

And so on.

Somebody's lying here. But in Virginia and many other states around the country, even the most intrepid journalist would have a tough time telling you who. That's because, as campaign finance reformers focus on big-business vote buying at the national level, state campaign finance laws make the besieged federal rules look downright draconian.

In Virginia, for instance, campaign finance limits are pretty simple: There are none. There--as in Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Idaho, and Oregon--orporations, individuals, political action committees (PACs), and unions can spend millions buying small-town legislators without even bending the rules. That's precisely what the federal government was trying to prevent when it limited individual campaign contributions to $1,000 and PAC contributions to $5,000 annually.

Of course, most states' laws are subtler than Virginia's; there are a few limits, but with loopholes you could drive a limousine through. Twenty-one states have no cap on the amounts PACs may give; 18 allow unlimited personal contributions. Combine that with reporting requirements for lobbying that demand about as much vigilance as Reagan's oversight of the S&Ls, and you've got a recipe for disaster--or rather, a recipe for just the kind of backroom dealmaking that's made so many average Americans feel shut out of the democratic process.

As soul-searching about big-money influence slowly gathers momentum in Congress, state legislators and the corporate powers they serve have been peculiarly insulated from the zeitgeist. That's too bad, since the New Federalism of the Reagan-Bush era greatly increased the influence of state legislators and the interests they serve. And when they exert pressure at the state level, their power is harder to trace and fight.

Pac men

During the past five years, scandals in a passel of state legislatures have provided some racy reading. There was the FBI sting that snared California state Senator Joseph Montoya extorting funds from lobbyists for foreign medical schools. And there were the Arizona legislators whose shenanigans were caught memorably on videotape: Rep. Don Denney stuffing stacks of $100 bills into a gym bag while promising to play "quarterback" for a bill supported by gambling interests.

But in states like Illinois, that kind of criminality doesn't have to happen. That's because, while Arizona has a handful of annoying campaign finance laws, Illinois' affluent interests can boldly buy their votes on the right side of the law, And because they can, they do. Consider the 1992 bill that lifted the cap off what local telephone companies could charge customers. Illinois Bell, which stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars if the measure passed, spent at least $1.9 million in campaign contributions and lobbying costs.

Thanks to post-Watergate reforms, such blatant vote-buying could get you jail time at the federal level. But only 20 states have similar strictures. And while the federal government outlawed direct contributions from unions more than 40 years ago, a mere nine states prohibit union donations. Not that the federal laws are particularly tough--corporations and unions may establish their own PACs with donations from executives or workers and can contribute unlimited amounts of "soft money" through party political organizations---but at least those contributions are on the books.

What happens when there are no books is utterly predictable. Affluent, usually corporate, interests tend to dominate the political process. In Richmond, Virginia, it's only fitting that the concrete and glass towers emblazoned with the logos of Ma Bell and Crestar Bank seem to dwarf the state capitol. Public interest waxes and wanes, news coverage of legislative issues is spotty---but business, politicians know, is a pretty steady date. That fact surely wasn't lost on Democratic state Senator Jackson Reasor when Governor Douglas Wilder's clean air bill came to his transportation committee. Faced with a close vote, Reasor broke party lines and voted against the bill after receiving $14,708 in campaign funds from the oil interests--more than any other single committee member. Fatal move? Not likely. Few Virginia voters know his name, let alone follow the intricacies of committee politicking, although they may be breathing the fumes of his pivotal choice for decades.