Anecdotes and analysis
of how it's raised and spent
By JAMES C. WORTHY
Professor of public affairs and management
at Sangamon State University, he was
formerly president of the United Republican
Fund of Illinois and a member of the
National Republican Finance Committee.
He is a trustee of Citizens' Research
Foundation, of which Herbert E. Alexander
is a director.
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Anecdotes and analysis
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An insider in GOP
fundraising in Illinois tells
his experiences and views
on campaign financing.
Disclosure laws now
provide the data to
analyze how campaign
money is raised and spent.
Alexander's book details
10 other states and
how their electoral reform
laws succeeded or failed
in 1974 elections
Campaign Money: Reform and Reality in the States, Herbert E. Alexander, Editor, Foreword by John W. Gardner, Epilogue by David S. Broder. The Free Press, New York, 1977. 357 pp. $10.95
THIS is a book about the way money was raised and spent for political purposes in 10 representative states in the gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns of 1974. Reading it brought back memories.
My own first exposure to the methods of financing political campaigns was a quarter of a century ago. I recall the occasion vividly. The scene was the Caravan Room on the eighth floor of the Chicago Club where a group of 20 men had gathered on short notice for lunch. When all those invited had arrived, a tall, rugged looking man walked to the door leading to the corridor, closed and locked it, and ostentatiously placed the key in his pocket.
"Gentlemen," he announced, "Jim, here, needs $20,000. He'll tell you what he needs it for. When we've got the $20,000, I'll unlock the door."
After a brief explanation, 20 men drew out their checkbooks and each wrote a check for $1,000. When these had been collected, the door was unlocked, luncheon was served, and what had now reverted to a purely social occasion proceeded in the pleasant atmosphere of a group of men satisfied with what they had done.
Not to be overly mysterious, I should explain that this event took place in the closing days of the 1952 presidential election campaign. I was Illinois co-chairman of Citizens for Eisenhower-Nixon. We had mobilized thousands of enthusiastic volunteer workers, and as the fateful first Tuesday in November approached victory seemed within grasp. But we were nervous. After all, Republicans had been out of power for 20 years, and we were haunted by the thought that, despite the favorable portents, something might go wrong at the last moment.
To guard against such a possibility, it was decided to take full-page advertisements in all newspapers in the state on the Sunday preceding election day. This would cost about $20,000, payable in advance- No provision had been made for such an expenditure, and only about three days remained before the final deadline for the ads to appear on the crucial Sunday.
It was to meet this emergency that the meeting at the Chicago Club was called. The host was Charles Wiman, finance chairman of Illinois Citizens for Elsenhower-Nixon and chairman of the board of John Deere and Company. The guests were leading business and professional men, most of them from the immediate Chicago area and all with established records as generous contributors to Republican causes. As noted, Chairman Wiman's confidence in them was not misplaced. The necessary money was raised, the ads were run and Eisenhower-Nixon carried Illinois and the country by comfortable margins. The last minute Sunday newspaper blitz may have added something to the final result in this state, but in retrospect it can hardly be called decisive. My memory of the event, however, is vivid because it was my first personal experience with big-time political fundraising,
Merriam v. Daley
As things turned out, it was not my
last experience. I subsequently became
involved in helping raise the money to
support Robert E. Merriam's race
against Richard J. Daley in 1955 when
the latter won his first term as mayor of
Chicago. Merriam came closer to
winning than any Republican mayoral
November 1977 / Illinois Issues / 11
candidate since the 1920's, and 1 have often wondered what would have hap pened if he had won. There has not been a seriously contested Chicago mayoralty race since then because Daley, once in office, proceeded to forge a de facto alliance with the Chicago business community which, among other things, effectively disposed of any realistic possibility of successfully financing a Republican bid for the office. I have some personal experience on this because in 1959 I was actively involved in trying to raise money for Tim Sheehan, Daley's Republican opponent that year; both the financial and the political campaigns failed miserably. Daley went on to win reelection after reelection, with constantly mounting pluralities. Now that he is gone, the future course of events in Chicago is far from clear, but it is exceedingly doubtful that anything like adequate financial support for a Republican mayoralty candidate is soon to happen.
Two significant aspects of the problem of political finance are illustrated by events during Daley's 22 years in office. Students of the subject have long recognized the power of incumbency: it is far easier to raise money while in than out of office. There may be nothing venal in this (though there often is), but the hard fact is that mere occupancy of a key political post is a substantial help in raising campaign funds. Contributors may or may not have a quid pro quo in mind; many people simply enjoy being on the winning side, and access to or identification with those in seats of power often does wonders for one's sense of self-esteem.
Patronage advantage
After his first successful mayoralty
race Daley had no difficulty financing
his quadrennial campaigns. This was
due not only to the loosening of donor
purse strings but to the ready availability of large numbers of patronage
workers who, already on the public
payroll, did not have to be paid from
party coffers for the performance of
essential campaign and election day
duties.
The Republican party, with few patronage workers at its disposal, had to rely chiefly on volunteers, many of whom had to be paid to compensate them at least in part for taking unpaid time off from their regular jobs to get
out the vote on election day. The number of such people for whom modest stipends could be provided was severely limited by the barrenness of the Republican larder. As a result. Democratic precinct workers in Chicago typically outnumber Republican by twelve or more to one — with predictable results when the votes are tallied.
Mayor Michael J. Bilandic has yet to prove that he has the clout of his predecessor, but he inherits from Daley two heavy practical political advantages: fundraising leverage and an army of patronage workers financed at public rather than party expense. These great assets certainly do not bode well for prospective Republican mayoralty candidates any time in the foreseeable future.
Now that Daley is gone, it is exceedingly doubtful that anything like adequate financial support for a Republican mayoralty candidate is soon to happen
I came to know well the vicissitudes of Republican fundraising and campaigning in Chicago and in the state. Charles H. Percy, later elected to the U.S. Senate and now readying to run for his third term, brought me into the work of the United Republican Fund of Illinois in 1956. In 1958, I was elected vice president and a year later, president, succeeding Percy. After two years in this office, I continued to serve as a member of the executive committee for another dozen years. Although major changes have been made recently in responsibilities for and the organization of Republican fundraising, during the period of my active involvement, and for many years prior thereto, the United Republican Fund was the official financial arm of the party in Illinois. I thus had the equivalent of total immersion in political fundraising for a significant period of time.
I ran my first $100 a plate dinner in 1957, when George Humphrey, former secretary of the treasury, was the featured speaker. Being new at the managing of this kind of event, 1 failed to appreciate that the rate of ticket buying starts out very slowly and that the bulk of the money comes in the last couple of weeks. Watching daily receipts and seeing how agonizingly slowly they mounted, I became increasingly nervous, which led me to double and redouble ticket selling efforts. The result was a massive oversale, which required seating paying guests in meeting rooms, foyers, corridors and wherever else space could be found in the Conrad Hilton Hotel, in addition to crowding as many tables in the Grand Ballroom as the fire marshall would allow. Financially, the affair was a great success, but 1 came out of it with an ulcer.
The United Republican Fund, originally organized in 1936 as the Republican Citizens Finance Committee, holds an interesting place in the annals of political finance. Reflecting in part the unsavory influence of Big Bill Thompson, Chicago's last Republican mayor, Republican fundraising in Chicago and to some extent in the state had fallen into sad disrepute. In a move designed to separate recipients from givers and thus minimize both the temptations and the opportunities to buy and sell political influence, the Citizens Finance Committee undertook to raise all the money required by the Republican Cook County Central Committee and the State Central Committee and to guarantee the meeting of all Illinois' obligations to the National Committee. Moving spirits behind this commendable effort were such leading Chicago business figures as Edward L. Ryerson of Inland Steel, R. Douglas Stuart of Quaker Oats and others of their kind.
Republican laundering
The Republican Citizens Finance
Committee [renamed The United Republican Fund (URF) when Percy
assumed its leadership in 1956] has
performed highly useful services for
some 40 years. It succeeded admirably
in its initial primary aim of channeling
individual contributions into a common
pool from which funds for party purposes could be drawn without identification of individual donors, thus removing any one-to-one relationship between
giver and receiver. Those active in the
citizens committee, later the URF, were
careful to hold themselves aloof from
any personal political involvements and
12 / November 1977 / Illinois Issues
to restrict themselves solely to providing essential but disembodied financialsize=3 support for the party.
In this endeavor, the concerned men and women who comprised the leadership of the Citizens Finance Committee and the United Republican Fund were reasonably successful for many years. The Cook County Central Committee and the State Central Committee, unlike their counterparts in many counties and states elsewhere, were assured support for their essential activities — not nearly as much support as they might have wished but a workable level of resources on which they could count. Also over this period, Illinois built up a notable record of meeting its national committee quota.
Increased costs
In recent years, this favorable state of
Illinois Republican financial affairs has
deteriorated seriously. The chief cause
has been the striking increase in the
costs of campaigning, in part as a
reflection of general inflation but more
particularly as a result of growing
sophistication — and expense — of
campaign technology. Computers are
coming to play an ever more significant
role in planning campaign strategy and
in executing campaign tactics. High-
priced talent, expert in analyzing and
manipulating voter psychology, are
increasingly a must for all serious
contenders for high public office. The
decline of patronage as an effective tool
for mobilizing unpaid volunteers has
forced greater dependence on workers
who have to be paid. Above all, the
increasing use of electronic media has
sharply escalated the costs of campaigning for most of the more important
public offices. Lavish use of television
for presidential, gubernatorial and
senatorial races has become essential if
candidates are to have any hopes of
success.
Actually, the cost of campaigning for all offices, great and small, has increased beyond the capacity of many candidates to handle from resources at their own disposal. At one time, most candidates merely ran "on the ticket," depending on the efforts and momentum of the party to carry them into office. Other than printing up a supply of cards and inexpensive leaflets, candidates for other than major offices were typically put to little expense. More and more in recent years, however, even candidates for relatively minor offices have had to assume larger and larger burdens of campaign costs. With the rise of the independent movement and the decline of straight-ticket voting, candidates can no longer rely as once they did on their party and must run increasingly on their own individual credentials which has added materially to the burden of running for office.
As the total burden of party and candidate finance grew prodigiously, the capacity of the United Republican Fund to meet the demands made upon it fell further and further short. Candidates and party officials found it necessary, therefore, to devise other means for meeting their needs. While the URF continues to play an important role, it no longer occupies the central place it once did. Party committees have found it necessary to supplement support received from the URF by money raised directly or through fundraising organs of their own devising. Unfortunately, these efforts have seriously eroded the base of potential financial support available to the URF. Where once Republican fundraising in Illinois was a reasonably orderly affair, several party entities and a host of individual candidates are now competing for support. The prevailing situation is chaotic.
It is unfortunate that Herbert ALEXANDER'S book, Campaign Money does not include Illinois among the 10 states chosen for study. Illinois, however, did not meet one of the key criteria for is to explore in some depth the effects of electoral reform legislation enacted to establish some measure of public control over campaign finance practices. Unlike Illinois, each of the 10 states studied elected a governor in 1974, thus making it possible to examine funding practices at the highest state level. Sometime soon someone should undertake a similar comprehensive survey and analysis of the effects of Illinois reforms in this area; the effort would be rewarding.
Meanwhile, those interested in the state of affairs in Illinois can study Alexander's book with profit. Even though it does not include Illinois, the account of what happened in other states provides a useful perspective and raises numerous questions which are pertinent here as well as elsewhere. Above all, the experience of other states calls attention to pitfalls we would be well advised to avoid and suggests promising avenues for exploration. And besides, the book makes fascinating reading,
Campaign Money is an account of the way money was raised and spent for political purposes in 10 representative states in the gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns of 1974. The year 1974 is significant because it was the first year in which major elections were held under the provisions of election reform legislation sparked by the rising tide of public concern over, campaign finance practices, a concern culminating in the broad public revulsion to Watergate.
The 10 case studies were prepared under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation and under the auspices of the Citizens' Research Foundation of which Herbert Alexander is executive director. The 10 states included in the study represent a cross section of the nation in terms of size, geography and other salient character! sties. All had some form of campaign disclosure laws which made information gathering possible. The individual state studies were prepared by experienced political reporters in the several state capitals who were on the scene during the 1974 campaign, were thoroughly knowledgeable of the candidates and local political traditions and practices, had access to necessary information, and were blessed with the ability to articulate their findings.
The book has a thoughtful foreword by John W. Gardner and a provocative epilogue by David S. Broder. Alexander's introduction places events reported in the 10 states in broad, national perspective and provides a dispassionate, reasoned analysis of the key issues of campaign finance reform: disclosure of sources and uses of funds, limitations on receipts and expenditures, public support, and enforcement.
10 states
The 10 studies document Justice
Brandeis' aphorism that the states should serve as "laboratories of reform." If the purpose of laboratories is
to experiment, the states have certainly
done that so far as electoral reform is
concerned. Legislation enacted in the
different states varies greatly in philosophy, substance and effectiveness,
thus providing a rich and varigated mine
of experience on which future reform
November 1977 / Illinois Issues / 13
efforts may draw. The primary va!ue of the book is to make this mine of experience broadly available to practicing politicians, scholars and all others interested in the realities of campaign finance and the potential avenues for correcting the more serious abuses.
The book is especially timely because, compared with the federal level, so much work remains to be done at the state level. While temptations and opportunities for abuse undoubtedly exist at all levels of government, they are especially prevalent at state and local levels where politics come much closer to many special interests and where the glare of publicity is more often dim than white. The 10 case studies in Campaign Money relate in fascinating detail the inventive skill by which financially pressed candidates and people with private causes to serve can find ways to get together. The information reported in these studies would not have been available were it not for the financial disclosure requirements which are a feature of much recent legislation. With all their weaknesses and carefully crafted loopholes, these laws have brought to light much that has heretofore been inaccessible. Campaign Money demonstrates in vivid and convincing detail that political finance is a fundamentally important problem for our professedly democratic society. Running for office costs money — lots of it — and the higher the office the higher the cost.
The one problem of when
and how to raise it brings
up another problem of how
to keep the raising and
spending of vast sums
within the bounds
of public interest
The first problem of political finance is the increasingly large amounts of money required. The second problem is when and how to raise it. Which brings up the third problem of how to keep the raising and spending of vast sums within the bounds of public interest. Campaign Money documents the complexity as well as the magnitude of the latter problem and explains the difficulty of dealing with the problem in ways that will enhance political probity without distorting vital political processes.
The dangers of distortion are surely there. Enforced changes in campaign practices may well bring about far- reaching changes in the political system. Restricting the size of campaign gifts may weaken the ability of lesser known candidates to capture public attention in time to assure success at the polls. Public financing of political campaigns (which is already in effect for the presidency and which will undoubtedly be extended to many other offices as well) will further attenuate the relations between candidates and their parties. In seeking more effective control over the flow of campaign money, the tendency is to centralize accountability in the candidate rather than the party, which will inevitably weaken still further (he already moribund American party system. As Alexander states in another study:
"Reform ... is not neutral, hut works to
change institutions and processes, sometimes
in unforeseen ways .... Laws that regulate relationships between candidates and political parties, and between citizens and politicians, and that affect the relative power of
interest groups (including political parties).
are bound to influence the entire political
process and change the ways in which citizens, candidates, parties, and other groups
participate and interact in elections." ("Re-
thinking Election Reform," Annals,. American Academy of Political and Social Science
May 1976.)
The detailed case studies in Campaign Money set forth the ways in which electoral reform laws have worked in 10 states, the extent to which they have succeeded or failed, and at least some of the side effects they have created. These studies, together with Alexander's introduction and Broder's epilogue, will be highly useful in the years ahead to students and practitioners of the political arts.
Herbert Alexander is uniquely qualified for planning this book and bringing it to being. The Citizens' Research Foundation, of which he has been executive head and guiding spirit since its inception nearly 20 years ago, is the leading organization in the country devoted to the study of political finance, and its bulging files are the richest storehouse of campaign data in existence.
I first met Alexander in the Cabinet Room of the White House in October 1961. The occasion was the presentation by President John F. Kennedy of their commissions to the rnembers of his newly appointed Presidential Commission on Campaign Costs. I was a Republican mernber of this bipartisan group, and Alexander was its executive director. I well remember the intensity with which President Kennedv expressed his exasperation at some of the practices engaged in by both political parties in the 1960 campaign and his determination to use the powers of his office to effect meaningful reform. A key move to this end was the establishment of the Commission on Campaign Costs.
This was a 9-man commission (there were no female members -- this was still only 1961), cornposed in equal thirds of Republicans, Democrats and Independents. The nonpartisan status of the latter was presumed from the fact they were all recognized scholars in the field of political finance.
Alexander at that time was just beginning to make a name for himself as a student of money in politics. He had served as director of the Citizens' Research Foundation in Princeton, N.J.. since its inception in 1958, and he has continued in that capacity to the present time. The foundation is a private, nonpartisan organization devoted to the objective collection and analysis of issues and data in the arcane labyrinths of political fundraising and spending. Results of the foundation's early efforts and the experience gained therefrom were of great value to the presidential commission in its deliberations.
The commission completed its work and submitted its report to the President in April 1962. The commission's major recommendations were accepted by the President, translated into legislative proposals, and transmitted to the Congress. President Kennedy's untimely ly death deprived the proposals of his strong sponsorship. President Lyndon B. Johnson had priorities other than the reform of campaign finance practices, and few of the commission's ideas ever saw the light of statutory day.
It can be said of few scholars that they have directly influenced the course of history; Herbert Alexander is one of those few. Establishment of the Citizens' Research Foundation in 1958 was in response to, and itself tangible evidence of, rising public concern over a political
14 / November 1977 / Illinois Issues
system largely financed by wealthy individuals and organized interest groups who were perceived to gain thereby an undue influence over political candidates and public policy. Public apprehension on this score mounted during the sixties and led, in the early seventies, to a wave of reform at both state and federal levels. The movement was greatly strengthened by Watergate and its aftermath.
Specific reforms varied from state to state, but areas subjected to regulation included reporting contributions and expenditures, limiting expenditures and establishing regulatory agencies to enforce the new laws. Between 1972 and 1976, legislation on campaign finance was enacted by 49 states and the federal government.
Alexander's influence
Alexander has had a marked influence on these developments. In addition
to writing and lecturing extensively, he
has served at various times as consultant
to the president, the comptroller general, the Office of Federal Elections, the
U.S. Senate Select Committee on
Presidential Campaign Activities and
several state boards of elections, including that of Illinois.
The research and publications of the Citizens' Research Foundation have helped increase public awareness of the problems of political finance and, through provision of reliable, objective data, encourages informed debate and judgment. The foundation's Model State Statute on Politics, Elections, and Public Office, of which Alexander was the principal author, has provided a useful set of guidelines for local reform efforts and an objective standard by which the fruits of local efforts can be judged. No state has yet come anywhere near the high goals set by the model statute, but it can be said with some confidence that many state laws are better than they probably would have been if the model had not been there to provide a challenge and a goal.
Alexander's latest work, Campaign Money, will carry his influence still further. The tide of political reform is now running strongly. Developments in the years immediately ahead will be interesting. Their course can be more intelligently followed and their significance more meaningfully appraised because of the work he has done.ž
November 1977 / Illinois Issues / 15