Bought & Sold

Montgomery, Ala. — Dog-racing magnate Milton McGregor came to the state legislature last year armed with that strongest of political weapons: money.

Election records show that McGregor had funneled more than $644,000 in campaign contributions to lawmakers during 1990 through a political action committee called JOBPAC. In the 1991 session, McGregor wanted state legislators to approve a special referendum that would allow him to race greyhounds at a defunct horse track in Birmingham. He also demanded a provision exempting the track from scrutiny by the state racing commission.

When the vote came on McGregor’s bill, 19 of the 20 state Senators who received JOBPAC money voted his way. In the state House, 39 of46 members getting JOBPAC money voted for passage. “Bought and sold!” cried Representative Phil Poole as his colleagues voted to give McGregor what he wanted. “Bought and sold!”

“Now you know why the legislature is a rubber stamp for the special interest groups,” Senator Larry Dixon said after the vote. “With the way special interests buy commitments, there are some issues where we might as well all be wearing team jerseys.”

In a state where 18 percent of the population lives below the poverty level, few individuals have McGregor’s resources to influence public decision making. But other powerful interests — trial lawyers, timber companies, and the farm bureau — pay full-time lobbyists to work the halls of the state legislature. PACs spent $14.2 million during the 1990 elections, with the top five spending $1.4 million in the last six months of the campaign.

While the payoff may not be as blatant as the dog-racing bill McGregor won, a look at the laws passed in 1991 and 1992 shows that campaign contributions are still an effective way to gain the ear — if not the votes — of state legislators.

“If you’ve loaded a legislator’s wagon up, all you’ve got to do is remind him of that fact” when votes come up on key bills, says Representative Bob McKee, a Montgomery Republican who has authored several campaign reform bills he says have little chance of passing. “The lobbyists ain’t no fools. They know where to put that money.”

Killing Tax Reform

Bill Drinkard, a former legislator turned lobbyist, believes the process is more subtle than simply buying votes outright. He says campaign money is used not as a bribe, but to perpetuate the careers of candidates whose voting records support the needs of big donors.

“The farm bureau knows which candidates will vote against raising property taxes, and that’s the guy who gets their campaign dollars,” Drinkard says. “The paper mills and timber interests know, either by campaign promises or voting records, which candidate is a strong environmentalist. And unless there’s a strong mitigating factor, they won’t give to that individual. In Alabama, it is more a case of the giver selecting the one who already best represents their wants, as opposed to trying to turn a lawmaker’s head with dollars.”

Pro-business contributors found a sympathetic majority in the legislature this year on the issue of tax reform. For an entire year, study groups and special task forces had considered how best to overhaul the state’s antiquated tax system, which heavily favors major landholders and starves schools. Alabama has the lowest property tax rate in the nation — and the highest percentage of adults who lack a high school diploma.

The initial thrust of tax reform was to pump extra money into education and other needed services by shifting the tax burden away from the poor and middle class to large industries and huge land holders. Going into the 1992 session, a package of 30 bills began the twisting path through the House and Senate, then to a conference committee, back to the House, and finally to the Senate again — where the package died.

By the last night of the session on May 18, the original measures were so diluted by special interest groups that Alabama stood to gain only $424 million a year — $126 million less than when the bills first left the House Ways and Means Committee.

Who killed tax reform is now the subject of much post-session rhetoric and newspaper editorializing. But one vote clearly illustrates how legislators did the work of their campaign contributors: 13 of 19 senators who voted for an amendment to reduce property taxes for landlords got money through lobbyists working for realtors.

PAC contributions to the pro landlord legislators ranged from $500 to $30,000. Bob Wilson, the senator who offered the amendment, received $4,500 from the special interests.

The Big Players

Still, not all lobbyists agree that money buys votes. Rick Harris, legislative liaison for the state Department of Public Health, says it’s more a matter of buying access.

“Lobbyists and those who give substantially to campaigns get the ear of legislators,” says Harris. “The big players walk into any legislator’s office at any time and can sit down and have the legislator’s attention.”

Don Gilbert, president of the Alabama Trial Lawyers, agrees. “All we ever expect in exchange is the opportunity to sit down and explain our position,” he has said. The group topped the list of all PAC givers in 1990, contributing $406,758 to lawmakers.

Such sums buy more — and better — access. The public is confined to glassed-in observation galleries in both the House and Senate. Reporters work in glass press boxes and must send pages to the floor to request interviews. But lobbyists like Gilbert may enter the Senate chamber and work the same floor where legislators cast their votes.

Gilbert is a regular visitor to the offices of the House speaker and Senate president, and a regular contributor to such events as the “sine die” bash where lobbyists pay $350 to join legislators and celebrate the end of the session.

This year the trial lawyers had a strong interest in the outcome of a massive package of worker compensation reforms. During the debate, their lobbyists convinced legislators to eliminate a provision that would have allowed administrative law judges to arbitrate disputes. Such arbitration would have shortened the time that victims of workplace accidents spent in court — and cut into the number of billable hours lawyers could charge their clients.

The tobacco lobby offers another example of how campaign dollars influence the outcome of bills. The Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Alabama, with strong support from public health officials and doctors, proposed a Clean Indoor Air Act to promote smoke-free indoor environments. Joe Carothers, chair of the House Health Committee, got the bill assigned to his panel — which twice failed to raise a quorum when the bill was scheduled for a hearing.

Members of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Alabama, angered over the delay, pointed out that Carothers had received $ 1,800 in campaign contributions from three tobacco companies in 1990. In 1991 — a non-election year — he received even more tobacco money, and others on his committee got between $200 and $700 each. All told, tobacco-related lobbyists gave lawmakers $20,000 in 1991. Then, just as the bill seemed poised for action in the full House and Senate, the tobacco companies countered with their own legislation: two bills promoting “smokers’ rights.”

“The whole issue of smoke-free air indoors became a warped and cynical piece of legislation,” says Holley Midgely of the state medical association. “Tobacco interests have lost the battle over the health implications of smoking, so they have put this whole other spin on it to make smoking a civil rights issue. By stating that smokers’ rights shouldn’t be abridged, they drew legislators into a battle over a side issue.”

State Senator Danny Corbett, who sponsored one of the pro tobacco bills, took $500 each from Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, plus additional contributions from the Tobacco Institute. In the end, the clean-air bills died for lack of attention: They never made it onto the calendar in either chamber for a final vote.

“Clean indoor air bills will never pass this legislature,” observes Bill Drinkard, the veteran legislator turned lobbyist. “If we educate people enough and they begin to put the pressure on, maybe then it’ll stand a chance.”

Lawmakers and lobbyists alike agree that the most effective way to offset the influence of big contributors is to mobilize voters. “It’s the non-participation by constituents that forces representatives to rely on big business,” says former Representative Bill Slaughter of Birmingham. “The power of the constituency back home still holds more sway than the wishes of the lobbyists,” agrees Rick Harris of the public health department. “If the people in the district back home want something and make their wants known, there’s no amount of money that can get most of these guys to vote against the people.”