Amway’s $1.3 Million to Fund GOP Convention TV Coverage

Amway Corp. confirmed Thursday it donated $1.3 million so the Republican Party can provide “unfiltered” coverage of its convention next month on cable television, a plan Democrats intend to challenge before the Federal Election Commission as illegal.

Amway gave the $1.3 million to the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau on the condition the bureau use it to purchase prime time viewing hours on televangelist Pat Robertson’s Family Channel during the GOP convention. The time will be used for party-coordinated coverage of the Aug. 12-15 convention, telecasts the Republicans are calling GOP-TV.

The Democratic National Committee charged Thursday that the arrangement was just a way to get around a federal ban on corporations buying television time for political parties. “This is a blatantly illegal contribution to the Republican National Committee,” said spokeswoman Amy Weiss Tobe.

But Republicans insisted that since it was the convention and visitors bureau, not Amway, that paid the Family Channel, the arrangement is “perfectly appropriate.”

“The Democrats are probably kicking themselves that they don’t have the same opportunity (at their Aug. 26-29 convention in Chicago),” said Republican spokeswoman Mary Crawford.

Amway, the privately held Ada, Mich.-based company which sells 400 products and services worldwide, has long been a major contributor to the GOP. In 1994, Amway donated $2.5 million to the Republican National Committee, the largest corporate political contribution in American history.

GOP-TV telecasts will include nightly coverage from the floor and friendly interviews with Republican leaders by Republican interviewers. This is the first time such coverage has been attempted.

Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the party’s coverage will provide a view of the convention that is “unfiltered” by the networks.

Reint Reinders, the convention and visitors bureau president, said he views the GOP-TV coverage as “a wonderful way to showcase San Diego as an aggressive, next-century kind of city.” He said he expects the political coverage to be mixed with “vignettes showing how beautiful San Diego is and what a wonderful family vacation spot we’ve become.”