Campaign cash trumps work in Congress, ex-members say | Secrets of the Hill

Editor's note: This is the first part in a week-long series, "Secrets of the Hill: What you don't know about Congress," reported by Thomas Langhorne from Washington, D.C. It aims to give readers an inside look at Congress.

WASHINGTON — David Jolly remembers seeing United States senators – distinguished men and women – huckstering for campaign cash from phones in a ground floor conference room. Another senator hovered over them like a pit boss.

Jolly, a Florida Republican congressman from 2014 to 2017, also remembers seeing a “board of shame” outside grubby cubicles where colleagues made fundraising calls at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Democrats make their calls from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

John Q. Public sees members of Congress on C-SPAN, in the news and back home in the district. But he never sees his representative in these places.

“They had a huge whiteboard with every (Republican House) member’s name and how much money you’ve raised, and it’s red, green or black, depending if you’re over your target or under your target,” Jolly said.

Three years in the U.S. House of Representatives opened Jolly’s eyes.

“It’s the number one job of any member of Congress, to raise money,” he said. “Any member of Congress who says otherwise is lying. It’s plain and simple.

“If you put yourself in the role of congressional leadership, policy, ideology — all of that is secondary to maintaining (party) control (of Congress) or to attaining control. And the only way to do that is with money. And so leadership wants their rank-and-file members out there raising money, not legislating.”

Now a frequent cable TV political analyst, Jolly remembers other things from his days on Capitol Hill. He remembers GOP congressional leaders insinuating he’d have to work the phones hard to keep the Appropriations Committee slot he’d coveted. He remembers one of them telling him plainly after he won a special election for his Tampa-St. Petersburg area House seat that his priority in the months preceding the November election would be raising money – at a torrid $18,000-a-day clip.

The pressure to raise campaign cash skyrocketed after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling, which gave corporations, labor unions and “social welfare” nonprofit groups the ability to spend without limit on political advertisements about federal candidates.

It's not just a Republican thing.

Tom Perriello, a former Democratic House member from Virginia, estimated members of the lower chamber spend at least 50 percent of their time dialing for dollars and hosting fundraising events. The pressure is much less intense for senators, who serve six-year terms. House members serve two-year terms — meaning they seek re-election every other year.

“You’re running for re-election pretty much the day after you get elected,” Perriello said. “If you’re in a safe district, you’re busy raising that money to give to the party so the party can be in control (of the House).”

Rick Nolan, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, laid bare the details.

“The simple fact is our entire legislative schedule is set around fundraising,” said Nolan, who has introduced a bill that would prohibit congressional candidates and members of Congress from soliciting campaign cash on days Congress is in session.

“On day one of a four-day work week votes start at 6:30 p.m. so members can arrive back in Washington for a full day of fundraising. On days two and three, procedural votes are scheduled in early afternoon, giving members all morning, as well as late afternoon and evening, for fundraising," Nolan said by email. "The final vote on day four occurs like clockwork around 10:30 or 11 a.m., leaving all day for, you guessed it, more fundraising.”

No one has to ask whether all this adds up to a lot of money. The amounts raised are staggering.

During the 2016 election cycle, candidates for the U.S. Senate and House raised just short of $2.5 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s up from nearly $1.8 billion in 2014.

Coercion

More than one former member of Congress has spoken of feeling used by party leaders who are fixated on fundraising and of finding the cubicles demeaning.

Some have said there’s an element of coercion, too.

One former House member recalled being cajoled by congressional leaders to abandon legislative committee hearings to make fundraising calls.

“I remember having to push back where they’d say, ‘Hey, can you go down and make some calls?’ and I’d say, ‘Well, I’ve got a (House committee) hearing,’ and they go, ‘Yeah, but you need to make calls.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I have a hearing.’ And they’d say, ‘Well, there’s really nothing important going on in that hearing today,’” said the former member, who didn’t want to be identified.

The ex-legislator paused, remembering how emphatic a member had to be to quell such badgering.

“I finally said, ‘Well, I bet the people back in (the district)  would rather have you go to your committee hearing than walking down the street to make fundraising calls.’”

Such a call might come from House leadership staff — who want to hold the member’s seat to perpetuate the party’s control — to the member’s chief of staff, who has a vested interest in keeping his own job. But the calls always came.

“Literally, if somebody canceled an appointment, or if a committee hearing got canceled, they’d say, ‘Well, why don’t you walk down to (party headquarters) and make some calls?’” the former member said.

‘They like the system’

Current members of Congress – those who want to get ahead here, anyway – don’t talk this way. It is a story told largely by former members and members who are serving their final terms. They don’t have to worry about alienating voters, donors or party bosses. 

If Jolly needed a vivid demonstration of what it means to break ranks, he got it when he introduced a bill in 2016 that would forbid members of Congress from personally soliciting campaign contributions for any federal election activity. The prohibition included times Congress wasn’t in session.

The bill attracted nine co-sponsors – nine, in a body of 435 members.

The STOP Act – there was no acronym, just the word, “stop” – would not have outlawed high-dollar fundraising. Members could still attend fundraisers and talk to donors. Other people could still ask for money on their behalf.

The bill was an acknowledgment of the intimidation that can accompany a fundraising call from a member of Congress with committee jurisdiction over an individual’s livelihood or professional standing. It’s the kind of pressure a congressman’s finance chairman just can’t replicate.

“When I introduced the STOP Act, members cheered me on. They thought it was great. But, publicly, they couldn’t join me,” Jolly said.

What were they afraid of, besides losing money for their own re-election campaigns?

“Leadership,” Jolly said. “If you step out on an issue like this, you get hit pretty hard by leadership and disciplined for it.”

Congressman Walter Jones knows all about that.

The 75-year-old Jones, a North Carolina Republican, has established a reputation over 24 years of being hard to handle. He won’t vote for any bill that increases the national debt. He won’t make fundraising calls for the party. There’s a lot of things he won’t do.

And he has paid the price. Unopposed in November’s election, Jones will retire in January 2021 having never been a ranking member of any House committee or even the chairman of a subcommittee despite serving more than a quarter-century in Congress.

“I was on the Financial Services Committee (in 2011 and 2012). That’s one of the committees where you’re supposed to raise money for the party, and I didn’t do a very good job of raising money for the party. So they took me off,” Jones said with a chuckle. “That’s another reason they don’t love me as much as they could.”

Among the reasons for Jones’ retirement from his Outer Banks district: “The influence of money.”

“I’m sick and tired of seeing policy – too many times — policy that gets to the floor of the House, it’s because of money,” he said.

“When leadership says, ‘Well, we’ve got a bill that a certain element, special interest, would like to see passed, and so therefore we’re going to extort from the special interests. You want to get your bill passed? We’re going to have a fundraiser. So therefore, you participate, we’ll pass your bill.’ I don’t say that happens all the time — but it happens sometimes, and it should not be a practice.”

Federal Election Commission data shows Jones has just over $498,000 in his campaign account, 69 percent of it from individuals.

Now in the twilight of his congressional career, Jones has lent his name to a variety of seemingly hopeless efforts to curb the influence of big money in politics. He was the only Republican to join 161 Democratic co-sponsors of Maryland Congressman John Sarbanes’ 2017 bill that would establish a public financing system for elections incentivizing contributions from small-dollar donors.

Jones joined Nolan in offering a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United ruling. He also was one of the nine co-sponsors of Jolly’s STOP Act.

Both parties talk a good game about controlling the influence of money in politics, Jones said — but they won’t actually do anything about it because it helps them get and keep power. That’s why the initiatives Jones has endorsed have gotten so little support from his colleagues.

“If Paul Ryan, (Republican) speaker of the House, very powerful – if Paul Ryan said to the public, ‘I’m going to see reform in the House of Representatives, and I’m talking about reducing the influence of money’ — he could do it,” Jones said. “Same thing with (House Democratic leader) Nancy Pelosi. If she should become speaker again, if she said she wanted to move (reforms), she could do it.

“Paul Ryan can raise millions of dollars by going out somewhere in one night. And Ms. Pelosi can do the same thing. They like the system the way it is and, yes, they like raising money for their parties. They can do it.”

Peeking behind the curtain

House leaders don't talk much in public about the pressure they bring to bear on the rank-and-file to raise big money. But sometimes it leaks out anyway.

Roll Call, a Washington-based news site that covers Congress, reported in March 2011 that then-House Speaker John Boehner had “urged his freshman (Republican) members to post strong first-quarter fundraising numbers during a closed-door session Tuesday morning at GOP campaign headquarters.”

Citing “a GOP aide with knowledge of the meeting,” Roll Call reported that Boehner told members “he would be monitoring their (Federal Election Commission fundraising) reports closely.”

But the Roll Call report hasn’t been the most eye-opening peek behind the curtain. Not by a long shot.

In 2013, the Huffington Post obtained a PowerPoint presentation by the DCCC to incoming House freshmen that advised them to spend four hours a day in “call time.”

Four hours is a good chunk of any day – and it was twice the time set aside for actually legislating on the House floor and in committees. Another one to two hours was designated for meeting with visiting constituents.

Nolan, who was part of that freshman class, said the recommendation shocked him.

“Spend four hours a day fundraising, add time with staff, meetings with constituents etc., and the question becomes, when do you have time to govern?” Nolan said by email.

Nolan will retire at the end of his current term in January, having served another six years in Congress in the 1970s. He said he has never set foot in one of the DCCC's "call centers."

“The enormous amount of time members spend fundraising results in virtually every bill coming to the (House) floor under a closed or restricted rule that severely limits debate and amendments,” he said.

“As a result, a lot of good ideas get left on the cutting room floor, and that’s frustrating —and bad for the country and for our public policymaking process.”

Mouths to feed

Republicans and Democrats say “call time” happens in dingy telemarketing-style rooms — places members of Congress might not bring their own mothers. Not that they could bring anyone other than a staffer. These places are supposed to be secret.

“It’s a hallway with 10 to 15 of these miserable cubicles. They have these little radiators, or wall air conditioners,” Jolly said. “These things are probably three feet by three feet. You get a chair and a phone, and they are ratty. I stopped doing it. I wouldn’t do it.”

Federal law forbids seeking or receiving campaign contributions from federal offices, so the NRCC and DCCC set up their call centers in their headquarters just a few blocks from the Capitol. Members can log call time between afternoon and evening floor votes or legislate a couple of hours in the morning, then walk over at lunchtime to dial for dollars.

It’s one of the reasons House committees rarely hold hearings through lunch hour, Jolly said.

Just a stone’s throw from the Republican and Democratic call rooms are Capitol Hill townhouses owned by trade associations or perhaps by fundraising consultants for candidates. They’re spaces where clients can host “networking events” to raise money from political action committees. Fundraising events of all kinds – breakfasts and lunches in Capitol Hill restaurants and private clubs, after-work receptions – are as much a part of congressional culture as floor votes and committee hearings.

Edicts from party leaders to spread the money around don’t need to be whispered in darkened hallways, Jim Arkedis said.

“These are obviously not conversations that are necessarily out in the open in front of the press, but they would occur in front of the entire party congressional caucus at a retreat or at some sort of monthly meeting,” said Arkedis, a D.C.-based Democratic strategist and veteran Congress-watcher.

Arkedis is co-author of the 2014 book, "Political Mercenaries: The Inside Story of How Fundraisers Allowed Billionaires to Take Over Politics." He said the typical member of Congress has lots of mouths to feed.

Even a politically safe member who doesn’t have to sweat re-election is expected to pay six-figure assessments to his national party’s congressional arm. Many ambitious members also raise money to fund “leadership PACS,” which help members make friends – particularly if they aspire to rise within party or House committee ranks.

“If he wants to climb to the leadership of his committee, he’ll want to give out money to other members of the committee in his party,” Arkedis said. “The (congressional party) leadership might ask him to kick in money to candidates who aren’t incumbents. They’ll say, ‘We think candidate X in such-and-such district is within striking distance. We’d like you to give him 5,000 bucks.’”

Arkedis believes the pressure from congressional leaders is making it harder for lawmakers to cultivate close working relationships.

“They’re spending so much time hopping from fundraiser to fundraiser in order to fulfill party leadership’s demands that they raise money, that they are not spending time with one another,” he said.

“There are very few moments during the day of socializing time, when members from either party can sit down, have a drink, play cards, go to dinner, talk about their families, go to each other’s kids’ birthday parties. Members did that 30, 40 years ago, and they don’t today.’’

Less fundraising “would lead to some more comity and a more healthy and functioning Congress,” Arkedis said.

Looking ahead

Dave Brat questions the whole premise behind the two parties' unrelenting drive for campaign cash -- that it is necessary to win and to thus control Congress.

Brat, a Republican congressman from Virginia, won his Richmond-area seat in 2014 despite the fact his opponent had nearly a 27-1 fundraising advantage. Brat denied renomination to then-Rep. Eric Cantor, No. 2 Republican in the House and a major party fundraiser.

And he did it all with slightly more than $206,000 against Cantor’s nearly $5.5 million.

So focused on party fundraising was Cantor that the Washington Post reported he presided over a "monthly fundraising coffee with lobbyists" at a Capitol Hill Starbucks on primary election day rather than campaigning in his district just a two-hour drive south.

But Brat ran a populist campaign, railing against the influence of lobbyists and corporate money and taking a hard line on illegal immigration. His victory gave ammunition to those, like Jolly, who argue that forbidding powerful members of Congress to personally solicit contributions would be a popular idea.

“I’m one of the exceptions to the rule,” said Brat, who calls himself the only PhD economist in Congress. “I’m more of a directly grassroots guy.”

Perriello said winning issues – not piles of money – are the secret to victory.

The former Democratic congressman said he stayed out of the DCCC's cubicles when he was in Washington and still maintained a healthy bottom line by “doing a lot of small voter online fundraising” focused on issues.

The self-styled “strong progressive” Perriello’s approach resembles that of Brat, a conservative Republican who pounds conservative issues like illegal immigration. Each man relied on motivated activists and issues-oriented voters with strong beliefs to light a fire under his campaign.

Perriello said he did enough fundraising to keep the DCCC happy. He just wasn’t into the whole dingy cubicles thing.

“To their credit, as long as I was hitting my numbers, they did not care the number of hours I spent in the room,” he said.

Refusing to ask for money himself, David Jolly raised almost $2 million for his unsuccessful 2016 re-election bid.

“The encouraging thing is, once I stopped directly soliciting money myself, our fundraising numbers went up,” Jolly said.

“But I wanted to be able to get through that last race so I could show my colleagues, ‘Look, you can do this,'” he said, pausing a moment.

"And then nobody owns you."

Part 2:Bipartisan caucuses in Congress pack a punch | Secrets of the Hill

Part 3:Congress doesn't live here anymore | Secrets of the Hill

Part 4:Scramble for office space in Congress is about status | Secrets of the Hill