The money behind the movement: term limits is touted as a grassroots uprising. But guess who's paying the bills?

Common Cause Magazine, Summer, 1993 by Amy E. Young

Other big donors to the Michigan campaign included Ed Prince and his manufacturing company, Prince Corp. ($60,000); term-limit committee co-chair Glen Steil ($26,230); Bruce Elder, who is self-employed ($30,000); O'Keefe ($24,990 in loans and contributions); and Amway's Richard DeVos ($10,000).

State term-limit campaigns like to trumpet the number of small contributions to suggest their support is broad-based, but most admit they couldn't have won without the big and out-of-state money. "We needed to get to those [who could] make substantial contributions. It's extremely difficult to make it on small [ones]," says Allan Schmid, treasurer for Michigan's Vote Yes committee. "If I had to take money from Saddam Hussein, it wouldn't bother me in the least."

But Kathy Pelleran, former executive director of Michigan Citizens Alert, a group opposed to term limits, criticizes this kind of support. "They brought in an agenda from outside the state. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out there are just a few people behind this movement," she says.

Local term-limit advocates not only raised large donations from out of state; some also helped finance the campaigns personally.

Phil Handy, chair and founder of Florida's Citizens for Limited Political Terms (CLPT) and a member of USTL's board of directors, loaned the committee $111,850 through BKA Inc., one of his investment partnerships. Another of his businesses, Winter Park Capital Corp., donated $19,000 in in-kind contributions. Handy also raised $42,000 in small donations, but says the $626,469 in large donations -- of which $107,750 came from his Chicago and New York friends -- helped foot the payroll for his six staff members. In all, the Florida committee raised $862,653, with term-limit groups kicking in $100,700. Handy has forgiven the loans and the committee has disbanded.

"It was worth it," he says of his $130,850 donation. A former Republican fundraiser and financial manager for former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez's 1992 reelection bid, he adds, "It is rare that one has an opportunity to have such an impact on the process."

In Missouri and Arizona, term-limit committee chairs also made big loans that weren't repaid. Gregory Upchurch, a St. Louis patent attorney and chair of Missourians for Limited Terms, is out $49,367, in addition to his $20,000 donation. "I started this effort and I wasn't going to let it fail for lack of money," he says. Altogether his committee raised $288,222, nearly half from big-money donors. In Arizona William Long put up $58,135 to keep Citizens for Limited Terms afloat. Long's loan-turned-donation and contributions from other large donors -- totaling $177,025 -- made up three-fourths of Arizona's campaign budget.

Big money also financed campaigns to defeat term-limit initiatives. Indeed, the contributor report for "No on 573," a coalition formed to oppose Washington state's term limits, includes some of the nation's most well-financed lobbying interests: tobacco giants Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco, defense contractors Northrop and General Electric, five labor unions and the National Rifle Association. "We asked the congressional delegation [representing the state] to help raise money. There is no question about it.... Philip Morris donated because of who asked them to," says No on 573 Treasurer Mark Brown, who defended the group's contributors, saying they all lived, worked or had business in the state.