Leadership PACs, Lobbyists, and
Loose Ethics in the Post-DeLay Era

In the race to replace disgraced Majority Leader Tom DeLay, aspiring House leaders are demonstrating that they haven't learned the lesson from the scandals that brought him down. By using campaign contributions from so-called leadership PACs to curry favor with their colleagues, Roy Blunt and John Boehner are perpetuating the culture of corruption that DeLay built upon during his career in Congress.

Leadership PACs are little more than slush funds that big donors use to circumvent the contribution limits that apply to individual candidates. A lobbyist can legally give a member of Congress $2,100 for their own campaign, but then can turn around and give up to $5,000 to that same politician's leadership PAC.

Members of Congress can't use leadership PAC money for their own re-election campaigns, although unbelievably Senator Mitch McConnell recently floated a proposal that would have allowed that. Rather, politicians use leadership PACs to build their clout within their party by giving money to their colleagues- effectively buying their way into leadership positions.

Representative Roy Blunt, the acting Majority Leader who is now vying to replace Tom DeLay permanently, doled out $448,572 to his fellow members of congress in the first 11 months of 2005. In the same period, Rep. John Boehner handed out $337,529 for the same purpose.

A significant amount of these funds were raised from lobbyists, folks not unlike Jack Abramoff, whose corruption charges continue to cast a cloud over the capitol. Representative Jerry Lewis, who is also mentioned as a potential DeLay successor, raised 37 percent of his leadership PAC's funds from just one lobbying firm and its clients over the past six years.

Unfortunately, current disclosure rules don't require Blunt or Boehner to reveal their gifts to other politicians during January until after the election for Majority Leader is over. At a minimum, both men should voluntarily disclose who their leadership PACs have raised money from and who they are dishing it out to prior to the vote.

But disclosure alone will not prevent lobbyists, or other powerful interests, from unduly influencing the political process. All of Abramoff's contributions and those of his clients were duly disclosed. The main thing that voters learn from disclosure is that the well-worn excuse that "everyone does it" is in fact correct. In order to stay in office and move up in the congressional pecking order, politicians of all stripes are compelled to accept contributions from lobbyists and other unsavory interests. Disclosure only informs voters that they often must choose between two candidates backed by different sets of wealthy interests.

To restore some trust in the institution, Congress should require candidates to receive all or most of their campaign contributions from their own constituents. It's hard to make the case that a donor who can't cast a vote for a candidate has any right to influence the choice that voters make in that candidate's election.

In addition to effectively ending the corrupt role of leadership PACs, curtailing out-of-district contributions would dramatically reduce the influence of lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. Lobbyists should be free to contribute to their own representative, just like the rest of us, but they should have no role influencing election outcomes beyond where they personally reside.

Back in 1990, when they were in the minority, Senator Mitch McConnell and 34 other Republican Senators co-sponsored a campaign finance bill that lowered the limit on what donors from outside a candidate's home state could contribute to that candidate from $1,000 to $500, lowered the amount that an individual could give to most PACs (including leadership PACs) from $5,000 to $1,000, and prohibited lobbyists from acting as conduits for campaign contributions.

While that particular proposal might not have gone far enough, had the Republicans enacted something along these lines once they took control of Congress, they might have prevented the current scandals. Now that voter confidence in Congress has been shaken again by corruption, its aspiring leaders would be wise to consider these ideas again.