GOP Freshmen Are Fast Studies at Fund Raising : Congress: With help of PACs, House newcomers have quickly become insiders in world of campaign donations.

Rick White, a boyish-looking lawyer, cast himself as the ultimate outsider in 1994 when he ran for Congress against Democratic Rep. Maria Cantwell, one of her party’s rising stars, in a politically moderate Seattle district.

One of his strongest qualifications was that he had never before sought public office, the conservative White contended. He blasted Cantwell for taking hefty contributions from those symbols of insider politics--political action committees.

But no sooner had White prevailed and taken his place as part of the triumphant new Republican majority than he began to play the fund-raising game like a veteran.

During his first six months in office, White collected $245,021 in campaign funds--three times the average for Democratic freshmen during a comparable period when they were in the majority in 1993. And 46% of the total came from PACs.

Measured in campaign currency, at least, White has become a Washington insider in a hurry. He has plenty of company among his 72 first-term Republican colleagues.

Helped and encouraged by the aggressive leadership of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and his lieutenants, the newcomers have undertaken the most concerted--and most successful--fund-raising blitz by a freshman class ever seen on Capitol Hill. In fact, in the first six months of 1995, three of the top 10 fund-raisers in the entire House were freshmen. And Washington’s PACs are prime targets for the blitz.

“They came to Washington and found reality. Namely, that they had campaign debts to pay off, that there were incentives for early fund raising to get a head start on the 1996 elections and that, clearly, there were individuals and PACs willing to help them,” said Herbert E. Alexander, a political scientist at USC.

Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, a proponent of stricter campaign-finance rules, offered a harsher assessment: “Freshman representatives came to Washington to shake it up; they’re staying to shake it down.”

Soliciting campaign money from groups that want things from Congress is neither new nor illegal. The freshman Republicans are only following the path blazed by their predecessors.

But the zeal with which they have adopted the old methods to entrench themselves in office suggests the arrival of a new set of career “insiders” rather than a new breed of “outsiders.” And the reliance on PAC largess, in particular, could make them vulnerable to the same kind of criticism that some of them leveled at their predecessors, especially if Texas billionaire and 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot continues to beat the drums about the corrosive impact of campaign money.

Defending the Practice

The lawmakers themselves defend their fund raising. They say that donors knew where they stood before they arrived in Washington and are filling their campaign coffers because they share the new members’ goals of shrinking government, slicing regulatory red tape and balancing the federal budget.

Rep. Frank A. Cremeans (R-Ohio), who raised $157,384 from PACs in his first six months, “is a guy who came here with an agenda,” said Mike Slanker, his acting chief of staff. “There’s no waffling on issues. It has nothing to do with who’s giving him money.”

And many freshmen did indeed take office with the twin burdens of enormous campaign debt and the prospect of a strong 1996 challenge. White’s campaign treasury owed $179,422--much of it to himself--and he already is high on the Democrats’ hit list for next year.

“To shake things up in Washington, we have to maintain the majority,” said first-term Rep. George Radanovich (R-Mariposa), who has raised $216,344 this year. “If you think you can change Washington in eight months or even two years, you’re crazy.”

The Republican freshmen as a group accumulated nearly $10.5 million in the first half of 1995, an average of $143,595 per lawmaker, according to a computer-assisted study by The Times. This includes nearly $4.6 million from PACs, an average of $62,935 per freshman and 44% of the total.

In contrast, the 47 Republican freshmen in 1993 raised less than half these amounts during the same period. The 63 Democratic freshmen in 1993 averaged $73,200 in that cycle, including $42,628 from PACs. The current crop of 13 Democratic first-termers lags well behind its Republican counterparts in early fund raising, averaging about $95,000, of which about $40,000 comes from PACs.

Much of the GOP money is coming from inside the Beltway. Freshman Rep. Daniel Frisa (R-N.Y.) took in about $120,000 at a single PAC event in Washington in March--fully half the total he spent to win a tough race in 1994. Frisa charged $1,000 a head, twice the going rate.

Help From Above

“It used to be that freshmen would hire me to do maybe two events a year,” said Nancy Bocskor, a Republican fund-raising consultant in Washington who specializes in PACs. She said she has done as many fund-raisers in the first six months of this two-year election cycle as she usually does in the six months before an election year.

“I now have monthly contracts with five of my six freshmen because fund raising is now an everyday occurrence,” she said.

The hard-nosed fund raising by the freshmen has been part of a larger campaign by House Republicans to cash in on their majority status after 40 years of Democratic rule. The leadership has placed special emphasis on assisting the freshmen in such areas as constituent services, communication and fund raising.

First-term officeholders are considered most vulnerable generally, and many in this year’s GOP class were elected from intensely competitive districts.

Gingrich, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.), Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and some committee chairmen have lent their names to solicitations, hosted freshman events and sometimes placed calls to potential donors. DeLay, for instance, mailed a letter on behalf of first-term Rep. Randy Tate (R-Wash.) to PACs that had contributed to the Democratic lawmaker whom Tate defeated, bluntly telling them: “Your immediate support for Randy Tate is personally important to me and the House Republican leadership team.”

In addition, the National Republican Congressional Committee sent a list of PACs to freshmen, rating the groups as friendly, neutral or unfriendly, based on their contribution records. Another proposal by Rep. Bill Paxon of New York, who heads the GOP congressional campaign committee, to label lobbyists in a similar fashion was dropped amid complaints that the plan was intended to intimidate donors.

The freshmen have benefited from the rush by some PACs to ingratiate themselves with newcomers they had not backed. Moreover, the GOP House members, with their “contract with America” campaign manifesto and pell-mell first 100 days, have been unusually dominant in driving the Washington policy debate.

As a result, according to one Republican fund-raiser who specializes in PACs, the typical freshman feels like “a kid in a candy shop right now.”

The contributions also tend to track closely with committee assignments. The top six first-year Republican members of the House in terms of PAC fund raising took in a substantial percentage of their funds from industries with interests handled by key panels on which they sit--Commerce; Banking and Financial Services, and Ways and Means, which writes tax laws.

White, for instance, a Commerce Committee member, raised more than half of his PAC dollars from health, telecommunications and financial interests whose legislative concerns could come before the committee.

One freshman even raised money to help secure such a plum assignment. Rep. Jon Christensen (R-Neb.), who has taken in $370,388 since Jan. 1, channeled about $80,000 to the GOP Congressional Campaign Committee after his razor-thin victory, as part of a full-court press to gain a seat on the Ways and Means Committee. “Everything I did was part of a plan,” Christensen told the Omaha World-Herald.

Team Players

The freshmen have also gained through solidarity and celebrity. Some lobbyists say they are more likely to attend an event where numerous freshmen show up on behalf of a colleague, thereby multiplying access. In addition, such famous rookie representatives as former football players Steve Largent (R-Okla.) and J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) and entertainer Sonny Bono (R-La Quinta) have headlined fund-raisers for their classmates.

Indeed, on the July day when Largent was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, the former NFL star attended events for contributors to Ohio GOP freshmen Cremeans and Bob Ney. When Largent was honored last month in Seattle, where he played for the Seahawks, the former wide receiver appeared at a fund-raiser for Tate.

Finally, many business PACs want to help ensure that the GOP retains its majority in 1996.

GOP political strategists insist that the freshmen are also taking in contributions in their districts.

“While raising money from traditional [Washington, D.C.] sources, they’re also raising money from real individuals back home,” said Brett Bader, White’s campaign consultant. “None of these candidates ran saying they wouldn’t accept PAC donations. What they did say was that a campaign should not be financed 100% by out-of-state PAC contributions.”

And Tricia Primrose of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee contended that because of the debts many of them carried into office from the 1994 campaign, the strides that the new Republicans are making in the money chase may be somewhat overstated.

She said the average GOP freshman ended the 1994 campaign with $62,000 in debt.

The lawmakers, particularly those who have advocated changes in campaign-finance laws, will face a test of sorts when they return to Washington this week. Freshman Rep. Linda Smith (R-Wash.) has introduced legislation to allow congressional candidates to raise money only from state residents and political party committees, prohibit PACs from donating to federal candidates, and sharply restrict candidates from making large loans to their campaigns and then repaying themselves through special-interest contributions.

Smith, a champion of a successful citizens’ initiative to reform campaign financing in her own state, was enthusiastically received at Perot’s recent conference in Dallas. She is the only freshman to have raised more money from small donors giving less than $200 than from any other source. She plans to push her bill this fall and to encourage the public to pressure lawmakers to overhaul the campaign-finance system.

Only five freshmen have signed on as original co-sponsors, but Smith said in an interview that she expects many of her classmates to get on board because “most of them were driven by change.” She said their initiation to Washington fund-raising rites should help.

“I think the example has been humbling to some of them: Being in that sewer, you keep swimming. I think they’re going to take the opportunity to get out of it.”

Times researchers Murielle E. Gamache, Gary Feld and Pat Welch contributed to this story.

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Freshman Fund-Raising

The top 1995 Republican freshmen political action committee recipients:

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1993-1994 Total PAC receipts receipts Debts John Ensign, Nev. 735,800 138,144 142,000 Daniel Frisa, N.Y. 240,300 73,689 117,585 Frank A. Cremeans, Ohio 894,797 116,949 385,589 Jon Christensen, Neb. 966,568 163,406 17,471 Charles Norwood, Ga. 764,934 141,873 96,455 Rick White, Wash. 940,508 67,220 179,422

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JAN. 1-JUNE 30, 1995 Total PAC receipts receipts Debts John Ensign, Nev. 448,698 196,855 4,567 Daniel Frisa, N.Y. 224,455 161,050 95,050 Frank A. Cremeans, Ohio 267,102 157,384 193,630 Jon Christensen, Neb. 370,389 136,750 15,045 Charles Norwood, Ga. 270,233 125,431 45,000 Rick White, Wash. 245,021 113,841 109,102

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Party Comparison

During their first six months in office, Republican House freshmen raised twice as much, on average, as their counterparts in 1993, and as members of the new Republican majority, they easily outpaced Democrats in donations from political action committees.

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PAC contributions Contributions other than PAC Republicans 1993 $19,841 $51,624 1995 $62,935 $80,660 Democrats 1993 $42,628 $30,575 1995* $41,564 $55,048

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* Based on reports filed by 12 of 13 Democratic freshmen

Source: Campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission