What Clinton and Dole could learn from the Teamsters - payroll deduction plan to reform political party finance

Washington Monthly, May, 1993 by Brooks Jackson

My favorite goo-goo reformer was Jackie Presser. Corrupt as the late Teamsters boss probably was, he practiced a form of good government that Bill Clinton and Bob Dole ought to imitate. That's because when it comes to political fundraising, the Teamsters' operation is, financially speaking, not only cleaner than the campaign finance efforts of either the Democratic or Republican party, but stronger at the grassroots level. Sure, there are plenty of worthy campaign finance reform plans floating around Washington these days, but the one the truckers cooked up is the best I've seen yet.

The Teamsters' system comes down to four words: a buck a week. While the national parties have become exclusive clubs for big donor lobbyists, corporate executives, and millionaires, the Teamsters' political action committee (PAC) is supported almost exclusively by rank-and-file members who voluntarily donate just one dollar every week directly from their paychecks. Using this democratic device, Presser, bless him, built the Teamsters' PAC into the mightiest political war chest of them all. But this system does more than merely raise steady and staggering sums. If the buck-a-week plan were applied to national campaign finance, it would connect the parties to the people, and more importantly, take a bold step toward limiting the excessive influence of special interests. And it's a reform that is relatively inexpensive to implement and could be enacted regardless of what happens to more controversial proposals, such as spending limits, taxpayer subsidies for congressional candidates, or the elimination of PACs.

Of course, none of this is intended as an endorsement of the Teamsters' PAC, or any other. (PACs are just the kind of special interest groups whose influence needs to be reduced, because they spend their money to buy access and push self-serving legislation at the expense of the rest of us.) But it is an endorsement of the way in which the Teamsters raise their political funds. "A broad-based PAC is the closest thing to real democracy there is," says David Sweeney, the Teamsters' legislative director. "When little people get together to pool their bucks, that's what democracy is all about." It's hard to argue with that.

It's also hard to argue with the need for some fresh ideas. Congress has waffled for years on campaign finance reform. And Clinton has recently shied away from some of his tougher campaign rhetoric on the issue. Democrats and Republicans remain miles apart on the issue, and Republicans can probably block any purely partisan plan with a Senate filibuster. But the public has grown weary of lobbyists and special interest money. The time has come, I humbly submit, to give the buck-a-week plan the heating it deserves.

Dollar bill

Here's how it works: Any Teamsters member who wants to give to the PAC signs a form, which goes to his employer's payroll office. The money is then deducted from the member's paycheck, along with union dues, taxes, and the rest. The Teamsters have worked this out through collective bargaining, but it would be a relatively simple matter to set up a similar system for political parties through legislation. All employers would offer voluntary payroll withholding for employees who want to make donations to political parties. The IRS would collect the money for parties just as it now administers payroll withholding for federal income taxes, Social Security, and Medicare.

This one swift measure wipes out a number of problems. Under the current system, only a small elite can afford to give $1,000 to a political candidate, the legal maximum at the federal level. Just a handful of millionaires and big corporations can afford to give $100,000, the standard unit for those unregulated "soft money" donations to the parties.

Despite the high entry fee, there are plenty of players. At the pinnacle of the Republican party finance machine, for example, is "Team 100," a coterie of real-estate developers, Wall Street dealmakers, and other rich folks who funnel $100,000 checks to the Republican National Committee. (Some, coincidentally, were made ambassadors by President Bush.) Not to be outdone, Ron Brown, during his stewardship of the Democratic party, set the price of admission to the DNC's "Managing Trustee" program at $200,000. Brown, formerly a wealthy special interest lobbyist himself, is now in the Clinton cabinet, and "managing trustee" Pamela Hartman has been nominated to become U.S. ambassador to France.

And it's not just ambassadorships at stake. Consider Dwayne Andreas and the company he heads, Archer Daniels Midland. It gave nearly $1.1 million to the Republican party during the 1991-1992 election cycle and $277,500 to the Democratic party. Andreas and his company may, of course, be as interested in good government as the next guy, but they are also keen to make both Democrats and Republicans aware of the importance of continuing the generous taxpayer subsidies that help create an artificial market for ethanol, of which Archer Daniels Midland is the nation's main supplier. Ethanol, by the way, was just exempted from the Clinton administration's proposed energy tax--which in effect gives it an even bigger subsidy than it now enjoys relative to other fuels. Is that all because of politicians' eagerness to appease Midwestern grain farmers, or did Andreas's enormous political contributions help?