Challengers Outspent by Wide Margin : Dollars Give Incumbents Decisive Edge in Politics

J.T. (Eager) Beaver is an obscure 83-year-old Republican who, in keeping with his name, campaigned for Congress last fall on his proposal to dam San Francisco Bay. With his entire campaign costing $3,500, which he paid himself, Beaver hardly posed a threat to the reelection of Rep. Fortney H. (Pete) Stark (D-Oakland).

Yet Stark, who raked in three-fourths of his campaign cash from special-interest political action committees, spent an overwhelming $246,000 to bury Beaver with 70% of the vote.

“I was concerned,” Stark explained, “about not having a serious opponent and (possibly) getting only 55% of the vote”--thus making himself a prime target for a strong Republican challenger in the 1986 election.

Stark’s brand of spending overkill, which was the rule among California’s 45 House members, tells a lot about why most of those incumbents are firmly entrenched in office.

Incumbents outspent challengers $11.6 million to $3.7 million--a ratio of more than 3 to 1--in the 1983-1984 election cycle, a Times study of newly filed candidate financial reports revealed. And they raised nearly five times as much as those who tried to unseat them.

That means that many incumbents emerged from their easy victories with huge cash hoards for the next campaign. Rep. David Dreier (R-LaVerne), for example, has a $606,000 “insurance policy” that he hopes will scare off serious opposition.

And Stark has come up with a new wrinkle that some of his colleagues say they cannot wait to imitate. On his financial report, he has listed a $150,000 line of credit from the Bank of America--a pointed warning to prospective opponents that he can summon up big bucks on a moment’s notice.

Campaign money is not the only advantage enjoyed by incumbents running for reelection. They also receive plenty of free publicity, and their office gives them the right to mail newsletters to their voters and to travel to their districts--all at the taxpayers’ expense.

Most Are Winners

These advantages were apparent at the polls last year, when 96% of House incumbents on the ballot in November were reelected. In California, where all 45 incumbents sought another term in Congress, only Rep. Jerry M. Patterson (D-Santa Ana) was defeated.

And Patterson’s successful challenger was no mere eager beaver. He was Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), a flamboyant, well-known former congressman who raised nearly $1 million, mostly from a national conservative following, and outspent Patterson by more than $300,000, reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show. Dornan claims, however, that Patterson enjoyed a built-in “incumbent’s advantage” worth nearly $400,000 in free-mailing privileges and other taxpayer-financed perks.

Patterson also had another apparent advantage: $448,000 in contributions from political action committees (PACs), much of it from financial institutions, builders and real estate firms that he had helped while serving on the House Banking Committee. Dornan’s PAC take was barely more than one-third of Patterson’s. “If Patterson had not gotten business PAC money that should have gone to a Republican, we’d have just clobbered him,” said Dornan, who won by 54% to 46%.

Patterson was only one of many incumbents who rolled in the PAC money at will.

Best to Be ‘Safe’

“Success breeds success,” Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), who raised $179,000 from PACs even though he had no opponent, admitted cheerfully. “You have a safe district, it’s easier to raise money.”

Nearly three-fifths of the $307,000 Matsui raised came from 234 PACs, most of them business firms and labor unions seeking to influence tax bills before the House Ways and Means Committee, where Matsui sits.

“They’re looking for access to me,” he said. “Even if you don’t produce, they (lobbyists) can show that they can walk into a congressman’s office.”

Many congressional challengers, shunned by PACs, had to dig deep into their own pockets for campaign funds.

Republican Roger Fiola, a Newport Beach real estate broker, lent $13,850 to his campaign against Rep. Glenn M. Anderson (D-Hawthorne), a sum he may never see again.

‘Not Winnable’

“A lot of PACs who were interested in 1982 (when Anderson defeated a better-known opponent) just felt that anything in California was not winnable in 1984,” Fiola said.

The new California congressional district boundaries worked against challengers, Fiola believes. He says many PACs decided that the district boundaries, which were redrawn before the 1982 elections, had made most seats very safe for their Republican or Democratic incumbents.

Anderson, who won with 61% of the vote, outspent Fiola, $327,000 to $54,000, reports filed with the FEC show, and he collected nearly three-fifths of his money from PACs compared with Fiola’s one-fifth. Reducing that disparity somewhat was a donation to Fiola by the House GOP campaign committee of $38,500 worth of “coordinated expenditures” for mailers.

“We put on a very good grass-roots campaign,” Fiola said. “But if PACs don’t give to challengers, basically they’re an institution to keep incumbents in office.”

Ready to Spend

Anderson’s wife and campaign manager, Lee, is eager to take advantage of the incumbent’s fund-raising ability. “I’m not going to lose a campaign because I don’t spend any money,” she said. However, she added, “I resent terribly having to spend as much as we spend.”

One of Anderson’s biggest expenses last election was raising funds--$120,000 to provide space, food and entertainment for two dinners in his district and two in Washington. As chairman of the House Public Works subcommittee on surface transportation, Anderson was able to draw on a long list of PACs, at a $250 minimum per dinner ticket.

“I think that’s outrageously high,” his wife said, “but others are charging up to $500 and $1,000.”

One California challenger, Patricia Smith Ramsey, figured she would receive scant money from PACs and refused to take any at all so that she could make it an issue against Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), who received $89,000 from PACs. But Ramsey, a Carmel businesswoman-attorney, garnered only 28% of the vote despite “lending” her campaign $425,000 and outspending Panetta by $134,000.

“It’s extremely difficult for any man or woman to take on an incumbent,” she concluded.

Last-Minute Money

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), who like Panetta and Patterson was one of the three California incumbents outspent by challengers, said he “gambled” that his opponent would not receive the huge infusion of last-minute outside funds that his Republican challenger received in 1982.

Democrats, Beilenson said, can be “blind sided” by opponents who receive huge donations from the House Republican campaign committee, which is much better financed than its Democratic counterpart. “So I don’t blame a lot of my Democratic colleagues for spending more than they might need to just to protect themselves,” he said.

Beilenson, who won handily in both 1982 and 1984, is the only California House member who refuses to accept PAC money, saying it creates “a built-in conflict of interest.” However, he does not condemn others for taking it.

“Mailing costs have quadrupled in the last 15 years, media advertising is very expensive and it is enormously difficult to raise two or three hundred thousand dollars from individual contributors,” he said. As for himself, noting that he represents an affluent district that includes Beverly Hills, he said: “I’m lucky. It’s easy for me to raise $150,000.”

While Beilenson was gambling last fall, Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose) was playing it safe, spending $402,000 to his opponent’s $14,000. “My (district’s) Democratic registration is only 50.2%,” Mineta explained. “So every two years I put on a full-blown campaign without regard to who my opponent is.”

The result: Mineta captured 65% of the vote.

THE BIG SPENDERS The 12 Most Expensive House Races in California, 1984

DISTRICT / CANDIDATES RAISED SHARE SPENT SHARE (incumbents in bold) from PACs of VOTE 38 Jerry M. Patterson $701,000 64% 687,000 46% (D-Santa Ana) Robert K. Dornan 999,000 16% 1,004,000 54% (R-Garden Grove) 8 Ronald V. Dellums 879,000 9% 952,000 60% (D-Oakland) Charles Connor 162,000 6% 166,000 40% (R-Oakland) 36 George E. Brown Jr. 585,000 38% 595,000 57% (D-Riverside) John Paul Stark (R-San 356,000 58% 356,000 43% Bernardino) 16 Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley) 204,000 43% 273,000 71% Patricia Smith Ramsey * 28,000 0% 417,000 28% (R-Carmel) 6 Barbara Boxer 505,000 39% 445,000 68% (D-Greenbrae) Douglas Binderup 65,000 28% 70,000 30% (R-Mill Valley) 41 Bill Lowery 461,000 40% 371,000 63% (R-San Diego) Robert L. Simmons 117,000 32% 122,000 34% (D-San Diego) 15 Tony Coelho 605,000 46% 456,000 66% (D-Merced) Carol Harner 9,000 0% 9,000 32% (R-Mariposa) 13 Norman Y. Mineta 476,000 37% 402,000 65% (D-San Jose) John D. Williams 8,000 1% 14,000 33% (R-San Jose) 4 Vic Fazio 331,000 37% 337,000 62% (D-Sacramento) Roger Canfield 125,000 13% 74,000 36% (R-Sacramento) 27 Mel Levine 333,000 19% 232,000 54% (D-Santa Monica) Robert Scribner 130,000 12% 151,000 44% (R-Pac. Palisades) 32 Glenn M. Anderson 380,000 58% 327,000 61% (D-Hawthorne) Roger E. Fiola ** 40,000 19% 54,000 37% (R-Downey) 2 Gene Chappie 372,000 33% 338,000 70% (R-Chico) Harry Cozad 31,000 13% 38,000 30% (D-Chico)

*Does not include $425,000 in candidate loans. **Does not include $13,850 in candidate loans. Source: Federal Election Commission CALIFORNIA CAMPAIGN SPENDING Spending by Incumbents and Challengers in House Races 1982 and 1984

1982 AVG.* 1984 AVG.** Incumbents $12,487,000 337,000 11,568,000 257,000 Challengers 4,398,000 157,000 3,695,000 86,000

* For 37 incumbents, 28 challengers. There were nine open seats; seven incumbents had no opposition; two incumbents faced each other because of redistricting. ** For 45 incumbents, 43 challengers. Two incumbents had no opposition. Source: Candidate reports at Federal Election Commission.