Hollywood Has Supporting Role in House Races

Hollywood producer and director Rob Reiner cannot remember the guy’s name, but he knows he sent the man $1,000 for his campaign to oust Idaho conservative Helen Chenoweth from the House of Representatives.

“She’s so extreme, she represents the worst part of the Republican Party that is becoming more and more vocal and powerful,” Reiner said.

Reiner’s interest in a relatively obscure House contest is not unique. A sizable contingent of President Clinton’s Hollywood fan club is paying attention to such races--or, at the least, helping pay the campaign bills. These elections have never held the glamour of presidential or even Senate campaigns. But what makes entertainment luminaries--including Oliver Stone, Tom Cruise and his wife, Nicole Kidman--care about a House seat in Boise is a desire to protect the president and his policies from archrivals in Washington.

The president’s recent legal troubles and attempts by some Republicans to capitalize on them have only intensified their desire to help, the stars and Democratic fund-raisers say.

Tonight, Clinton will stop at a fund-raiser for freshman Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) to give a boost to her effort to ward off a possible rematch with conservative Republican Robert K. Dornan.

The president will also do his part to keep the Hollywood donations coming by attending a sold-out, star-studded, $10,000-per-couple fund-raising dinner in Los Angeles to fund House campaigns nationwide. The event--whose sponsors include actor Michael Douglas and DreamWorks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg--is expected to raise $1 million for key House races across the country. Stone and actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen are also expected to attend. Several other members of the glitterati--including Kidman and Cruise--donated the $10,000-per-couple ticket price but could not make the party, according to event sponsors.

By contrast, a similar event for House Democrats last summer attracted the support of lower-echelon celebrities such as Morgan Fairchild and Nancy Sinatra.

The ultimate goal is to win the House back for Democrats--and thereby remove the obstacles blocking Clinton’s programs and virtually eliminate the chance that Congress will rough the president up after receiving a report on independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of him. But the celebrities also are willing to settle for incremental victories, such as narrowing the GOP congressional majority and defeating individual House members whose attacks on Clinton’s policies and reputation have been the most intense.

Dornan, who is seeking his party’s nomination in the district, was one of Clinton’s most outspoken congressional critics before Sanchez beat him in 1996.

Although Clinton’s Hollywood backers have started supporting a handful of far-flung House candidates, they are also sending money to California Democrats facing tight races with conservative Republicans. The candidates that have caught their eye include Sanchez and one of their own--Barry Gordon, a former president of the Screen Actors Guild. Gordon is building an impressive campaign coffer in hopes of defeating freshman Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale), a former municipal judge and prosecutor who was asked by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to analyze previous investigations of Clinton and offer political and legal advice on how the House should proceed against the president--if at all.

Boise lawyer Dan Williams, who is challenging Chenoweth, is the perfect example of the dozen or so candidates getting handouts from Hollywood, Democratic fund-raisers said. The race is expected to be close; Chenoweth, who is particularly audacious in her attacks on the president, barely edged Williams in 1996.

She has steadfastly opposed Clinton’s initiatives--from sending troops to Bosnia to creating national academic tests in math and reading. And, while more mainstream Republicans have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward Clinton’s troubles, she has called on the House Judiciary Committee to conduct an impeachment probe of the president over the allegations that Clinton had a sexual relationship with a former White House intern and obstructed justice or perjured himself to cover it up.

Even as he was unable to recall Williams’ name, Reiner said Chenoweth’s opponent is one of several House candidates who have received $1,000 checks from him--the largest allowable donation from an individual to a candidate. Reiner, who earned his fame playing the character best known as Meathead on the 1970s television series “All in the Family,” has long been engaged in politics. But he said he has never paid this much attention--or sent out this much money--for House elections.

Reiner said he believes that if he can help narrow the GOP House majority, the more likely it is that Congress will adopt some of Clinton’s legislative priorities--such as campaign finance reform. “It would be a miracle if the Democrats would take back the House, but there’s an opportunity to gain some seats,” Reiner said.

Hollywood’s unprecedented largess toward Democratic House candidates can be attributed to several factors, according to Rep. Martin Frost of Texas, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the political organization that recruits candidates and raises funds for House elections. These factors include outrage over the treatment of Clinton by House Republicans and a growing appreciation of the power a GOP-controlled House can have to block even a popular president’s priorities. Also working in House candidates’ favor is that there is no presidential race to support. In 1996, from Hollywood’s perspective, reelecting Clinton overshadowed everything else.

“In the past, [celebrities] have tended to be more interested in Senate candidates and, of course, presidential candidates,” Frost said. “We’re where the action is this year.”

Matt Angle, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, added that Democrats in Hollywood “realize that by controlling the House, the Republicans have a powerful tool to attack the president, and by changing the balance of power they could end those attacks on Bill Clinton.”

Democratic fund-raisers say Republican attacks on Clinton’s personal integrity over the Monica S. Lewinsky controversy have helped underscore their pitch to the stars that winning House seats matters.

“Clinton had not had his family and personal life dragged through the Congress until after the ’96 elections,” Angle said. “It’s clear you don’t turn the volume off until Newt Gingrich is no longer speaker.”

Angle was reluctant to give names of individual candidates receiving Hollywood money--for fear such a disclosure would backfire among local voters suspicious of outside influences, particularly from movie stars. But he said his organization has helped match stars with Democratic candidates who support their key issues--from environment to abortion rights--and have a good chance to win.

The president’s willingness to attend fund-raising events, such as the two tonight, serves as a big inducement for his celebrity supporters to give money to House races.

Democratic fund-raisers also say Gingrich rivals Clinton as the biggest magnet of donations from celebrities for the party’s House candidates. Although the speaker is a great draw in Republican circles, his words tend to bring out the Democrats in Hollywood.

“I’m overjoyed by the fact that Newt is on TV every day, because every time Newt is on television our fund-raising goes up because it reminds people what they don’t like about the Republicans,” Frost said.