Federal Workers Stuffing Campaign Coffers

The campaign fund-raiser at the National Democratic Club in March was, in most respects, like scores of others: For $500 a head, party loyalists got to sip wine and beer while speakers urged them to help make Al Gore the next president.

What made the Capitol Hill event stand out was that many of the donors worked for the government’s own Agriculture Department. And the evening’s headline attraction was their boss, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

This election year, federal employees are playing a growing role as a wellspring of cash for the candidates who would like to oversee them. That worries some campaign finance watchdogs.

“When a presidential candidate asks governmental employees in the administration to contribute, how can they possibly say no?” asked Ellen Miller, a longtime campaign finance reform advocate. Government work, she warned, could become “public service with a price tag.”

“The increases are abnormal,” said Bill Frenzel, a former Republican congressman who was active on election fund-raising issues. “It’s worth the Congress taking another look at.”

Federal workers have given nearly five times as much this year as two elections ago in 1992 and two-thirds more than in 1996. Most are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, but some are careerists with civil service protection against partisan pressures.

As an occupational group, federal employees rank among the top donors to the campaign of Vice President Gore. And they gave a surprising amount to his Republican rival, George W. Bush, to whom no federal employees owe allegiance.

Gore has raised $546,311 from 825 federal employees, according to an analysis for The Times by the Campaign Study Group of Springfield, Va. That is nearly five times the sum raised by Bill Clinton when he sought the White House in 1992.

And Texas Gov. Bush has received $275,571 from 395 federal workers--more than three times the amount his father, George Bush, collected in 1992, even though the elder Bush was running as the incumbent president.

Between them, this year’s candidates got their biggest harvest of federal worker contributions at the Agriculture Department--$96,845, with $80,745 of it for Gore and $16,100 for Bush. This was followed closely by $92,401 at the Justice Department, where Gore ($50,351) barely outdrew Bush ($42,050). Bush collected more than Gore from employees of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The average federal employee donation to Gore was $662 and to Bush, $698, records show. The legal limit is $1,000. Only contributions of $200 or more are reported individually to the Federal Election Commission.

Bush, as a gubernatorial candidate in Texas, raised money from a different kind of government official. He received nearly $1.4 million for his two gubernatorial campaigns from 122 people he named to 50 leading state boards and commissions, according to Texans for Public Justice, a nonpartisan research group. That’s an average of about $11,250 per donor (Texas has no contribution limits). Craig McDonald, the group’s director, said the findings reflect a “patronage system” in which Bush rewarded big givers with appointments and appointees thanked Bush with campaign contributions.

Ray Sullivan, a Bush campaign spokesman, responded: “Gov. Bush, who has appointed more than 3,000 dedicated Texans to boards, commissions and offices, makes appointment decisions based on competence and qualifications, not politics. It should come as no surprise that most Bush appointees share the governor’s political philosophy . . . .”

At the national level, Congress opened the way for more giving by government employees when it eased Hatch Act restrictions on federal employees’ political activity in 1993. This led the Justice Department in 1995 to reverse a 15-year-old position that federal law prohibited executive branch employees from contributing to a president’s reelection because he was their “employing authority.”

But federal employees still cannot raise money in most instances, particularly from subordinates and at their workplace. Linking contributions to job benefits is forbidden.

Spokesmen for the Gore campaign say they have scrupulously obeyed the law.

Peter Knight, who led Gore’s fund-raising, said the campaign did not have a program to target federal employees. Others outside the campaign staff who raised money did make such solicitations.

“These are people who are politically savvy, very used to being part of the process, and they know how necessary it is to have the money in the campaign,” Knight said of the donors. And, he added, “They believe deeply” in Gore.

Sullivan said: “Any contributions from federal employees were part of a general campaign effort through direct mail and events. Federal employees are not our natural base and were certainly not targeted in any way.”

Most of the 40 federal donors and fund-raisers interviewed by The Times said they were longtime Democratic contributors who gave without prompting, heard about a fund-raiser from friends or were contacted by mail at home.

Many credited their departments with extensive educational efforts on the do’s and don’ts of political activism. The Agriculture Department, for example, provided ethics training and circulated laminated, color-coded vest pocket reminders of restrictions on political activity.

Roan Conrad, a Commerce Department official who has supported Gore since his 1988 presidential bid and gave $1,000 this year, equated his quadrennial solicitation from the Gore campaign with “being notified that your membership in your health club is about to run out.”

Others were more defensive about giving. “It is completely lawful for me to do that,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Eleanor D. Acheson before cutting short an interview, explaining that she was uncomfortable discussing the contribution at the office.

A former senior Clinton administration official who has raised funds for Gore insisted that his name not be used because he feared being asked to testify by congressional Republicans. “People are always looking to score a cheap, easy shot on you, and there’s no easier issue than this,” he said. He said that in the administration’s early years, “I was shocked by the continuous need to raise funds on both the Democratic and Republican side.”

Some Bush donors also feared speaking on the record. A career Justice Department trial attorney said he was appalled that the department had become far more political during the Clinton administration. He gave $1,000 to Bush, who, he said, “gives me the impression [he’s] a little bit more uncomfortable with that type of partisanship.”

Two years after the 1993 Hatch Act liberalization, Abner J. Mikva, then White House counsel, informed executive branch employees that they were “no longer prohibited from making a political contribution” to an incumbent president.

The following year, in 1996, Clinton raised $416,158 from executive branch employees, quadrupling his total of four years earlier. Bob Dole, his Republican opponent, raised only $82,278.

Many federal employees have higher stakes in a presidential election than the average citizen. Most of Gore’s donors are political appointees whose job security is directly tied to the presidency.

Even some career employees, though insulated from partisanship by federal law, may foresee professional benefit from the election of one or the other of the candidates. And some may even hope that a donation will enhance their standing in a new administration.

A mid-level Commerce Department official called The Times to ask that his name be published as a donor “because I’d like the Gore people to know I gave $1,000.” But he refused to be identified as asking for publicity for fear that such self-promotion would be counterproductive.

When employees cross the line, penalties can be harsh.

Earlier this year, William Yellowtail, the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator in Denver, was suspended for 100 days without pay for authorizing his signature on a fund-raising letter for a congressional candidate.

In 1996, one current and three former Agriculture Department employees pleaded guilty to conspiring to pressure subordinates and colleagues to contribute to a political action committee that supported Clinton’s 1992 presidential bid in return for favorable job consideration after the election. Two of them, longtime career employees, were sentenced to terms in a halfway house. The case, prompted by a 1994 Times story, still reverberates, Agriculture employees say.

“Certainly everyone here learned a lesson of how serious Hatch Act violations are taken,” said Parks Shackleford, associate programs administrator for the Farm Service Agency and a Gore donor. “I’m not aware of any [such] activity that could be brought into question” today.

The Agriculture community event that Glickman attended was held March 2 as Gore wrapped up his primary fund-raising. It was organized by Robert Cashdollar, an agriculture lobbyist and member of Gore’s finance committee, who said he invited individuals outside the department as well as current political appointees. It raised about $40,000.

Glickman spokesman Andy Solomon said the secretary’s role was appropriate. “He did not ask USDA employees to attend, nor did he solicit them.”

Solomon noted that the secretary’s name, but not his title, appeared on the invitation. It said: “You are invited to a Gore 2000 cocktail reception with honorary guest The Honorable Dan Glickman.”

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Times researcher Sunny Kaplan contributed to this story.

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A Growth Industry

The amount of campaign contributions from federal employees to both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates has skyrocketed in the last three election cycles. The totals include all donations of $200 or more.

MOST GENEROUS DEPARTMENTS

The Cabinet departments from which Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush received the most in campaign donations from federal employees.

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Department Gore Bush Total Agriculture $80,745 $16,100 $96,845 Justice $50,351 $42,050 $92,401 State $25,450 $22,25 $47,700 Defense $17,050 $14,324 $31,374 Energy $23,275 $6,450 $29,725

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Source: Campaign Study Group analysis of Federal Election Commission records