Dems Seek to Channel Soft Money

Democratic congressional leaders want their top donors to redirect their money to special interest groups, thereby allowing them to wage costly election-year battles that their party will no longer be able to afford.

Although the new campaign finance law does not take effect until November, the leaders nevertheless hope to lay the groundwork for their future needs.

Conservatives have lambasted the effort as “the height of hypocrisy” and “unethical.” But Democrats say that funneling the financial resources of their base to “alternative avenues” is perfectly legal, politically necessary in the wake of reform, and something that the right wing has been doing with success for years.

Despite the controversy, it is becoming clear, as opponents of campaign finance reform have charged, that special interest groups will become bigger players in elections as the financial strength of the national party organizations declines.

The recent maneuvering also shows that while the new reforms may restrict the ability of federal candidates to raise unregulated soft money, the overall amount of money spent on elections is not likely to diminish.

The effort to familiarize donors with such groups as People for the American Way, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) and the League of Conservation Voters is being spearheaded by Mike Lux, a former member of the Clinton administration turned political consultant. As president of Progressive Strategies, L.L.C., Lux advises a stable of wealthy donors and politically active foundations.

Last summer, Lux organized between 150 and 200 donors into the Progressive Donor Network, a groups that shares a variety of like-minded goals, the foremost being the desire to put Democrats in power.

The group held its first conference two weeks ago, an event that brought nearly 100 donors together with the presidents of NARAL; People for the American Way; EMILY’s List, a group that supports pro-choice Democratic women candidates; the League of Conservation Voters; and the executive director of the NAACP National Voter Fund.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) addressed the donors at a dinner the night before conference.

The next day they heard from a number of interest groups as well as House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, according to a copy of the conference’s agenda obtained by The Hill.

A presentation made at the conference revealed that organizers stressed the importance of adopting new strategies for the upcoming elections and working in tandem with independent groups.

Organizers emphasized that “focus groups and polling data show that outside, non-party messengers are more effective with voters” and that “new campaign finance laws take political parties out of running issue advertising.”

Lux said the point of the conference was to initiate a dialogue between the party’s different constituencies.

“We felt there ought to be a way for folks in the labor movement, the environmental movement and the pro-choice movement to get together and talk,” Lux said. “We wanted to create a vehicle for donors to come together with those groups and political strategists and talk strategy.”

Lux said he invited individual donors who contribute between $25 thousand and $50 thousand in political donations and organizations that spend between $50 thousand and $2 million on races.

Lux conceded that one of the purposes of the conference was to adapt donors to the new campaign finance laws that will go into effect at the end of the year. To dispel any notion that the donors and party officials had gathered to circumvent the new laws, he pointed out that many of the attendees at the conference are strong advocates of reform.

“Many supporters of the new campaign finance law were in the room,” he said. “With the law changing, our strategy has to change. Organizations are looking to raise money from donors who used to give much of their money to the party and are now looking for other avenues. I don’t think people on the campaign finance [reform] side have ever been naive to that.”

Lux also noted that he is affiliated with the Arca Foundation, a philanthropic organization that “put a lot of money in campaign finance law.”

Upon learning of the effort to coordinate donors with independent groups, conservatives fighting the new campaign finance laws in court were harshly critical.

“This is the height of hypocrisy,” said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition, one of the groups challenging the law. “Just weeks after campaign finance reform was signed into law, Democrats are trying to circumvent it. The Democratic Party is now trying to ensure that their own special interest groups gain even more power.”

Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), another plaintive in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the law, said he was not surprised.

“It’s sort of the ultimate Washington hypocrisy that you work to support reform publicly but undermine it privately,” he said. “It’s probably technically legal but it’s unethical. That doesn’t stop the party from doing it.”

But Lux said that conservative groups have been coordinated in a similar way for years.

“I don’t think there is any question that they are ahead of us,” he said. “The right wing has an infrastructure that has been in place for several years and continues to grow. They do a far better job communicating to their troops and the general public. They’ve done more with it.”

Lux told donors that for years conservative donors have sought to bolster the GOP in elections by funneling money to groups such as Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Christian Coalition.

Betsy Loyless, the political director for the League of Conservation Voters, said her group would be a natural option for donors looking to help Democrats in key races around the country.

“Individuals are looking to make investments, campaign-related investments in organizations that run smart, effective and aggressive campaigns,” said Loyless. “LCV meets all of those criteria. … We run the campaigns smart. We don’t just throw money at it. [We] have the right issue, and we have the right campaign expertise, and we have a history of winning our ‘dirty dozen’ campaigns.”

Ralph Neas, the president of People for the American Way, which played a major role in the recent Senate rejection of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering Sr.’s nomination for the court of appeals, said independent progressive groups have become much more effective in influencing elections.

“One of the great untold stories in the media is the extraordinary work the progressive community did in 2000,” said Neas.

Neas pointed out that eight organizations spent nearly $70 million on races in the 2000 campaigns, between six and seven times the amount spent on the ’98 campaigns.