Big Donations Open Doors at Party Conventions

A private golf tournament in San Diego, a ride on the Stars and Stripes, Dennis Conner’s yacht, and a personal visit with Newt Gingrich--yours for just a $15,000 contribution to the Republican Party.

This not-so-subtle offer was mailed out recently to wealthy Americans who might be interested in becoming Republican Eagles--the highest rollers of a high-rolling party--in time for the August nominating convention.

And it illustrates one of the ways that both political parties use their summer conventions as massive, weeklong fund-raising parties--a phenomenon that began in 1980 and has increased every year since.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday that removed limits on how much parties can spend to support their candidates, the solicitation also underlines how badly the Watergate-era restrictions on political money giving have eroded.

The political conventions “have become money machines,” says Ann McBride, president of Common Cause. “Favored status at the convention is being used as a way to raise money, a way of directly trading benefits for money.”

The money donated through an easy-to-understand convention quid pro quo--you hand over a wad and get to hobnob with elected officials who could help your business--gives “undue and unequal access to those who contribute,” says Ellen Miller, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Or, as GOP Chairman Haley Barbour put it--more gently--in his letter soliciting large contributions, Eagles “will be honored guests of the convention” with a “convention program [that] provides an unparalleled opportunity for you to meet informally with the senior elected leadership of our party from Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich . . . to governors, congressional leaders and party figures from across the country.”

In the 1994 election cycle, for example, only one-quarter of 1% of Americans made a political contribution of more than $200. So the Eagles, and their counterparts among wealthy Democrats, are “a fraction of a fraction,” Miller says, a true elite that gets what the rest of us don’t.

Mary Crawford, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, declined to comment on the Eagles program. Her committee’s policy dictates that events not open to the public are not discussed with the press, she said.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee was reluctant to talk about fund-raising issues. “We don’t have sort of a menu of things, of perks that we offer to donors,” said Amy Weiss Tobe.

In reality, Democrats who raised or contributed a minimum of $100,000--dubbed the Democratic Party’s “trustees”--got special floor passes, reserved seats and party invitations at the 1992 convention. Similar events are planned this year as well.

Money-raising at convention time is “a real symbol of what goes on with money in our political process--special access,” McBride said. “The people left out are the average citizens. This goes on year-round, but the conventions become a symbol of the two-tiered status in politics today--those who give big money and other people.”

Truth be told, there are even greater shadings in the political class system. Even among the moneyed, there are those who give big money and those who give really big money.

The Eagles are the latter. Their schedule of events for the Republican Convention is a five-day whirlwind of receptions and luncheons, horse races viewed from the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and museum tours in Balboa Park.

For the Thursday afternoon regatta on San Diego Bay, with Conner as host aboard the America’s Cup sailboat Stars and Stripes, adventurous contributors can choose to be a crew member on deck in a racing boat. Their stuffier counterparts can keep dry aboard a slower-paced yacht.

If $5,000 is your convention-going limit, you have to fly a little lower than the Eagles but can join the “chairman’s advisory board,” which gets you a thinner schedule.

Donors at either level who are willing to spring for $1,000 a head more can also attend the Republican Convention Gala, an annual fund-raising dinner that last convention netted around $3 million.

In 1992, the Democrats had their own such event for the first time, a luncheon during the New York convention that netted about the same amount; tickets cost $1,000 or $5,000. That same year, 800 of the biggest Democratic donors were welcomed to the convention with a caviar reception at the refurbished Grand Central Station.

But the biggest thrill for major convention donors of both parties--or the most questionable perquisite, depending how you look at it--is access.

There are few mysteries here, no laws overtly broken, just the messy part of campaign finance law where so called “hard money” and “soft money” contributions meet.

According to federal law, individuals can give up to $20,000 to a political party each year to affect a federal election; that’s hard money.

But they can give an unlimited amount of “soft money”--ostensibly for such activities as get-out-the-vote drives. In practice, soft money spending often serves to aid specific candidates.

Herbert Alexander, a USC political science professor and campaign spending expert, says that in the past the Republicans “have recognized soft money and hard money contributions to get into the Eagles. They prefer hard money.”

Such activities as Eagles events are proof of the drawing power of quadrennial political events, Alexander notes. “There’s no single event every four years like a convention,” he says. “People who have money are willing to part with it because it can be fun. . . . Some large contributors are in it not so much for the quid pro quo on policy but because they enjoy mingling. [Groups like the Eagles are] a political register just like the social register.”