Inside the Campaign Finance Battle: Court Testimony on the New Reforms

Elected Officials Often Used to Obtain Large Donations for the Parties

Elected Officials Often Used to Obtain Large Donations for the Parties Wade Randlett Wade Randlett is the chief executive officer of Dashboard Technology, an Internet technology consulting firm. Prior to Randlett’s tenure with Dashboard , he served as a fund-raiser and political consultant in Northern California . He testifies on his experience raising and donating money to political parties, which included frequent requests from officeholders for donations. Randlett was a fact witness for the defense. I have been involved in political fund-raising long enough to remember when soft money had little value to federal candidates. Ten years ago, a senator might call a potential donor and the donor would say something like, “I would love to write you a check, I’m a big fan of yours, but I’m federally maxed, so I can’t do it. If you like, I could write a soft-money check to your state party.” And the senator might say, “Don’t bother. The soft money just doesn’t do me any good.” However, in recent election cycles, members and national committees have asked soft-money donors to write soft-money checks to state and national parties in order to assist federal campaigns. Most soft-money donors do not ask and do not care why the money is going to a particular state party, a party with which they may have no connection. What matters is that the donor has done what the member asked. Information about what soft-money donors have given travels among the members in different ways. Obviously, the member who solicited the money knows. Members also know who is involved with the various major donor events that they attend, such as retreats, meetings, and conference calls. And there is communication among members about who has made soft-money donations and at what level they have given, and this is widely known and understood by the members and their staffs. As a donor with business goals, if you want to enhance your chances of getting your issues paid attention to and favorably reviewed by members of Congress, bipartisanship is the right way to go. Giving lots of soft money to both sides is the right way to go from the most pragmatic perspective. Conversely, if you’re giving a lot of soft money to one side, the other side knows. For many economically oriented donors, there is a risk in giving to only one side, because the other side may read through Federal 305 07 1583-8 part3b 3/25/03 12:02 PM Page 305 Election Commission (FEC) reports [that detail party donations] and have staff or a friendly lobbyist call and indicate that someone with interests before a certain committee has had their contributions to the other side noticed. They will get a message that basically asks: “Are you sure you want to be giving only to one side? Don’t you want to have friends on both sides of the aisle?” If your interests are subject to anger from the other side of the aisle, you need to fear that you may suffer a penalty if you do not give. First of all, it is hard to get attention for your issue if you are not giving . Then, once you have decided to play the money game, you have to worry about being imbalanced, especially if there is bipartisan control or influence in Washington, which there usually is. In fact, during the 1990s it became more and more acceptable to call someone, saying you saw the donor gave to one candidate, so the donor should also give to the opponent . Referring to someone’s financial activity in the political arena used to be clearly off limits, and now it is increasingly common. Soft-money donors and fund-raisers definitely get a special level of access, visibility, and appreciation from members that is not available to smaller hard-money donors, much less the average person. Even someone who wrote twenty-five $1,000 hard-money checks but no soft money is going to get much less attention and appreciation than someone who wrote one large soft-money check. The raising and spending of soft money in recent election cycles has distorted the federal political system and the commercial marketplace. Many soft-money donations are made in order to advance specific legislative agendas, and they do produce at least appreciation on the part of powerful federal officeholders. Based on my observations, much of the business community believes that...