They spend more than half their day doing it:
"For freshman in Congress, courting cash is job 1; New members get the message quickly or they’re gone. It’s a fact of life in a gridlocked capital" by Tracy Jan | Globe Staff, May 12, 2013
WASHINGTON — Newly elected congressional Democrats had just a week to savor their victories before coming face to face with a harsh reality of Washington.
At a party-sponsored orientation session, the freshmen — many still giddy from winning close races in which they espoused grand plans to change the Capitol’s toxic atmosphere — were schooled in their party’s simple list of priorities for them.
Raise money. Raise more. Win.
The newcomers were told to devote at least four hours each day to the tedious task of raising money — so-called dialing for dollars — so they could build a war chest and defend their seats, according to those present. That’s twice as much time as party leaders expect them to dedicate to committee hearings and floor votes, or meetings with constituents.
Some members were flabbergasted. One rolled his eyes and walked out of the room.
But just about everyone in Congress signs on. Four months into a new session, Democrat and Republican freshmen in targeted districts say they often spend up to half their days raising money....
The all-consuming quest for dollars is part of Washington’s permanent, intensely waged campaign for party dominance. It cuts deeply into the typical day of lawmakers, robbing them of time they could spend building relationships with colleagues, dealing with constituent problems, and delving into policy issues. It is a major contributor to party gridlock, and keeps lawmakers dependent on the good graces of lobbyists and other special interests seeking favor on Capitol Hill.
The chase for campaign money is especially grueling for the 18 freshmen who have already been identified as top targets by the opposition in the 2014 election.
Almost immediately after being sworn into office — or in some cases even before — targeted politicians in both parties have been forced to defend themselves against negative attacks, bankrolled, in many cases, by the growing array of groups freed to spend without limit on elections by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.
Democrats and Republicans alike are compelled to sign confidential agreements with their parties’ campaign committees, pledging to meet specific fund-raising goals each quarter in exchange for a commitment of heavy financial support as the election draws near. Both parties’ campaign committees monitor their members’ progress weekly....
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee, function “basically like telemarketing firms,” said Tom Perriello, a Democrat from Virginia....
At a March fund-raiser at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, as lawmakers mingled with lobbyists – who paid up to $5,000 for the privilege of some face time at a gathering of elected officials — House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called out legislators’ names, ceremoniously disbursing tens of thousands of dollars from her own campaign coffers over the course of the evening. Her personal largesse is just the beginning of support they will receive from the party and party leaders, as they seek to defend themselves and their seats from partisan fire.
Related: First Female Speaker Failed
So much for those antiwar Democrats, 'eh?
Party leaders introduce freshmen to lobbyists right off the bat and actively encourage them to start working the phones, said Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida who was a Frontline member in 2009, lost his seat in 2010, and was reelected in 2012 in a newly created district that’s considered safe.
One of the handful down there that took on the banks.
The pressure to raise money opens the door for special interests, a timeless source of ready money, now available in greater amounts than ever.
“Of course they are all people with specific agendas, generally corporate agendas. So that’s how the ball gets rolling in terms of the interaction that leads to lobbyists influencing legislation, and members turning to lobbyists for money,’’ Grayson said.
Some of the newer lawmakers say privately they feel frustrated by the grinding process and the accommodations it requires. But most declined to even talk about the grab for cash, seeking to downplay the demands of fund-raising on their time and attention.
New Hampshire’s Ann McLane Kuster, a freshman representative elected in November, is among the Democrats’ Frontline corps who has plunged into the fund-raising fray with gusto. She tapped Washington lobbyists, unions, special-interest groups, and ordinary citizens for $316,880 in contributions in the first three months of the year. That is more than double the average haul of House freshmen in safe districts and places her eighth among freshmen Democrats.
But Kuster would not discuss details of the fund-raising side of her new job. Through her staff, she rebuffed multiple requests for interviews on the subject of the permanent campaign. Approached in a Capitol hallway and asked to describe her views of the rush for money, she replied only, “I am fortunate to have great support.’’
“I’m not distracted by any kind of campaigning at this point,” Kuster added, before hustling off. “I’m not thinking about the politics.”
A crucial swing state, New Hampshire has been the scene of some of the most intensely partisan campaigns in recent years. Kuster’s district has switched between Democrats and Republicans three times in the past four elections. In the last election, Kuster was the top recipient of DCCC money....
The Democrats, meanwhile, have a new weapon to help protect their most vulnerable. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, a Massachusetts freshman and the latest member of the Kennedy political dynasty to hold elected office, last month launched a leadership political action committee — a special committee that allows him to raise money to distribute to colleagues and party campaign funds — called “4MAPAC.” The PAC signals his intention to use the Kennedy name to build a political base through fund-raising....
It certainly isn't what it used to be, not if they need a PAC.
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Also see:
Sunday Globe Special: Courting the Senate
Seeing Through the Kansas Haze
Sunday Globe Special: Senate a Downer For Dole
Sunday Globe Specials: Fiscal Cliff Fraud
Honestly, that last one seems to be where all the problems lie.
And believe it or not, the Globe has the an$wer to the problem in the very same paper:
"Bring back the United States of Pork; When we threw out earmarks, did we lose the key to breaking down Washington gridlock?" by Leon Neyfakh | Globe Staff, May 12, 2013
If there’s one thing most Democrats and Republicans can agree on, it’s that the US Congress has become an ineffectual disaster, frozen in partisan conflict and seemingly unable to pass any meaningful legislation. One of the few instances of efficient lawmaking they’ve managed this year happened only after flight delays caused by budget sequestration began to threaten their own vacation plans. Meanwhile, the bipartisan gun control bill is dead, and the fate of immigration reform remains uncertain.
American politics, it seems, has become so polarized that lawmakers simply can’t find common ground on the most important issues of the day. But partisanship has always been with us, and as Congress approaches yet another potential showdown over the federal budget, a chorus of thinkers from the world of political science is making a surprising argument about how to overcome the gridlock. In order to help Congress get moving again, they say, America needs to restore something that has long been considered a symbol of all that is wrong with government: pork-barrel politics.
In an age of austerity?
Pork, in this context, refers to federal money that has been earmarked by lawmakers in order to fund projects in their home districts: things like roads, bridges, and museums, which tend to make voters happy and which lawmakers have been funding with federal money since the country’s birth. The past two and a half years have been unusual in American history in that Congress has been operating almost entirely without such earmarks, thanks to a pork ban that passed in both the Senate and the House in late 2010 and early 2011. Though driven primarily by conservatives concerned with fiscal responsibility, the move was ultimately applauded on the left and the right, and hailed as a victory against wasteful government spending and corruption on Capitol Hill.
But people who have thought hard about earmarks, and researched their history, say that in demonizing pork Congress accidentally gave up something deeply valuable: a tool for reaching compromise. Earmarks, they point out, can be used by party leaders as bait to convince—or simply bribe—lawmakers to support legislation....
Aren't those criminal?
The use of pork to ease the passage of controversial legislation dates back to the beginning of the Republic, when one of the very first American laws ever passed, the Lighthouses Act of 1789, made it to George Washington’s desk only after party leaders promised a group of reluctant Southern representatives they’d fund the construction of a new lighthouse in Virginia in exchange for their cooperation. While that may sound to us like a perversion of the democratic process—a system that rewards self-interested politicians bent on winning elections—those who believe in the power of pork argue that it’s a necessary part of a functioning democracy.
Then it is NOT a FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACY!
Pork has historically cost taxpayers a relatively small amount of money, less than half of 1 percent of all federal spending, they point out, and it has helped innumerable laws get passed in return.
Ea$y for them to $ay.
So far, the pro-earmarks argument has not gotten much of a hearing outside academic circles. But as the stalemate in Washington persists, and the “Grand Bargain” over the federal budget starts to feel more elusive than ever, it might be time to admit that a Congress without pork is useless, even if it feels a little less greasy.
Then the $y$tem is broken beyond repair.
Projects funded through earmarks, by definition, aren’t vetted by any federal agency in the same way as the vast majority of federal spending. Instead, they get paid for when party leaders tuck them into appropriations bills, either to do someone a favor or help a vulnerable politician win reelection. Over the years, this kind of ad hoc spending has become a powerful symbol of everything ordinary people hate about politics. Whatever benefits we may get from the pork barrel projects that our own elected officials bring home, there’s something disturbing about the idea that in addition to the set of national spending priorities we see hashed out in public, there’s an entirely separate one concocted in smoky back rooms and determined almost entirely through political maneuvering.
For critics suspicious of how Washington doles out taxpayer dollars, pork-barrel projects are extremely easy targets, and ridiculing them has long been a tradition in the anti-earmark movement. Since 1991, the group Citizens Against Government Waste has been publishing an annual “Pig Book,” singling out the silliest-sounding projects for mockery and scolding. Over the years, the book has taken note of a $1.65 million grant to “improve the shelf life of vegetables,” a $500,000 “teapot museum” in North Carolina, and $50 million for an “indoor rainforest” in Iowa. More recently, the $398 million construction project in Alaska known as the “Bridge to Nowhere,” pushed by Senator Ted Stevens, became a national symbol of governmental folly.
For a politician to stand up against pork, then, is to come out against a culture of waste and corruption—a winning move, especially in an atmosphere of antigovernment sentiment.
Well, maybe if government hadn't spent the last three decades lying and looting we wouldn't feel that way.
“Earmarks go against people’s sense of fairness,” said Scott Frisch, a professor at California State University Channel Islands and the coauthor of a recent book on pork barrel spending. He added, “Both parties have been able to win elections by demonizing them.”
But according to Frisch and other proponents of earmarks, to treat pork as if it’s synonymous with waste misses its practical role in making Congress work.
I that is what makes Congress work it is no wonder this country is going down the crapper.
In their 2011 book, “Cheese Factories on the Moon: Why Earmarks Are Good for American Democracy,” Frisch and his fellow political scientist Sean Kelly mount a spirited, two-pronged defense of pork. For one thing, they argue, most of the projects that get funded through earmarks—shelters for abused women, job training programs, research centers, transportation—aren’t actually all that frivolous, and are earnestly conceived by politicians in response to real needs in the communities they represent. Even more important, however, these projects serve as highly effective bargaining chips when ambitious, controversial legislation is on the line.
Diana Evans makes the same argument in 2004’s “Greasing the Wheels”: “Pork barreling,” she writes, “despite its much maligned status, gets things done.”
There isn't a better way?
In 1998, a major highway bill was passed thanks to earmarks; as a lobbyist told the National Journal at the time, “The projects are the glue that’s going to hold the damn thing together.” Around the same time, President Clinton won over a group of congressmen reluctant to go along with his controversial NAFTA bill by helping them secure earmarks for which they could then claim credit in their home districts. By giving the congressmen projects that would offset the wrath they might otherwise incur from voters, Clinton gave them political cover to go along with him....
And how has NAFTA worked out for you, 'murkn?
The current ban on earmarks was spearheaded by House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans who wanted to send a message about the importance of cutting down on government spending, but it ultimately won support on both sides of the aisle. So far there has been no sign that the ban—which was initially billed as temporary—will be lifted anytime soon. After all, who could argue with a measure that ensures federal money will never again be funneled to such apparent frivolities as the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas, or research on grizzly bear DNA, or new stadiums in Cleveland and Miami?
But it’s becoming clear that this antispending gesture has its own costs. “What we’re seeing is a natural experiment where we say, ‘Let’s try to run Congress without earmarks for a few years.’ And what we’re finding out is that we don’t really like what’s going on,” said Jeffrey Lazarus, a political scientist at Georgia State University who has published multiple academic papers on pork barrel politics. Once a skeptic of the pro-earmarks argument, Lazarus said recently that he has mostly changed his mind in the midst of the gridlock in today’s Congress....
There are still reasons to be skeptical about the idea of bringing back pork. On a practical level, Congress might simply be too polarized at this point for earmarks to work the way they used to—in part because many representatives today were elected almost entirely based on their opposition to federal spending, which makes them very unlikely to be swayed by the prospect of new government-funded bike paths in their hometowns.
There’s also a moral objection, stemming from the fact that earmarks don’t just enable back-scratching among lawmakers—they also offer one more way for powerful outside interests to secure favors from themselves through lobbyists.
But THAT'S the WAY the SYSTEM works!
I have to believe the founders would be horrified.
As Robert Kaiser describes in his book “So Damn Much Money,” it became common, starting in the late 1970s, for lobbyists to win federal money for clients by persuading politicians to seek specific earmarks in exchange for campaign donations. This kind of corruption was rampant before the ban went into effect, said Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, who in recent years has made campaign finance the focus of his academic work.
Lessig said he understands that earmarks were a useful tool for coalition-building. But the fact remains that they empowered companies and individuals who could afford to buy them. “If we go back to earmarks, you’ll just see that corruption manifest itself through the economy of earmarks again,” Lessig said.
But perhaps the most important reason the pro-earmarks argument is hard to swallow is that it violates our ideals about American government. Ultimately, its lesson is a cynical one: Without crude, institutionalized bribery, our democracy simply doesn’t work.
Not only cynical, but $AD!
Still, it might be worth accepting that slightly bleak view if it would buy us a Congress that actually functions again—and manages to move the country forward, however dubious the process.
I'm so tired of trading off principles and rights in favor of tyranny.
“This whole idea that legislators should be above selling their vote, and should vote with their conscience all the time—it’s this idealized vision of human nature that doesn’t really reflect actual human nature,” Frisch said. “People think it’s dirty, but it’s also how you end up with the Civil Rights Act.”
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