Selling Out at a Discount?

Published on August 19, 2008 08:00 AM
by Sean Parnell

File Under: Faulty Assumptions

Several decades ago, I recall trading "several shiny pennies" to my younger sister in return for the practically-falling-apart, tattered dollar bill she had somehow come by (when you're an aspiring con man at age 7, 5-year olds are pretty much the only marks available). The "progressives" at Blue America PAC seem to think Democratic Rep. Chris Carney has chosen a few shiny pennies from someone else over their own cash, judging by their angry denunciations being directed at him.

We all know the basic premise of "reformers" - nasty special interests (always on the other side of the issues, of course) give heaps of cash to politicians in the form of contributions, and politicians then turn around and vote the interests of their donors.

Enter Democrat Chris Carney, fresh off a win over an incumbent Republican in a rural, somewhat conservative Pennsylvania Congressional district in 2006. A quick look at Congressman Carney's 2006 contributor list on OpenSecrets.org reveals that ActBlue (the parent of Blue America PAC) was the leading contributor to his campaign according to how OpenSecrets classifies such things, followed by MoveOn.org. Between the two of them Carney received about $50,000.

Top PAC contributors include several industrial, service and government employee unions, trial lawyers, women's interest groups, and other left-of center groups. According to OpenSecrets, Carney received close to $400,000 from labor and ideological PACs out of his total of about $1.5 million. Carney's money was split about evenly between in-state and out-of-state contributors (his Republican opponent, by contrast, raised about 87% of his money from in-state residents).

Several, but by no means all, of the above groups generally support the idea of campaign finance "reform," particularly the folks at ActBlue and MoveOn.org. So I suppose it's only natural that they figured they'd bought themselves a Congressman with all their contributions, since that's how they think the system works.

Congressman Carney appears to understand what the "reformers" don't - that if he chooses his donors' interests over his voters, he's not going to be a Congressman for long. So, when several important votes came up where his donors wanted one thing while his relatively conservative district seemed to want something else, he sided with his constituents - casting votes in favor of the FISA surveillance compromise and against "hate crimes" legislation, and promoting his support of gun rights and tough immigration policy on his Web site. In other words, about what one would expect from a Congressman representing rural Pennsylvania, and who is a self-described "Blue Dog" Democrat, generally favoring more conservative fiscal and social policies than most in their party.

Needless to say, this has some of his "progressive" donors from 2006 in a tizzy, and they are now accusing Congressman Carney of "serving the demands of his big corporate donors... [and selling] out the Constitution for tens of thousands in campaign contributions from the big phone companies..." in his vote on the FISA bill.

The above link takes you to an image of the newspaper ad making just this charge, paid for by Blue America PAC. They even helpfully put a price tag on what Congressman Carney allegedly "sold out the Constitution" for - $27,900 from Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, the National Telephone Cooperative Association, and a few other telecom interests.

Those of you astute at basic math might notice something - the "price" for Congressman Carney's alleged sellout is less than what he received from donors who, apparently, really really wanted the FISA bill to be defeated. According to these "reformers," then, Carney sold himself for less than his previous "owner" was willing to pay for his vote. Not very smart, if true. Which, of course, it isn't.

Congressman Carney's contributions so far in this cycle, again according to OpenSecrets.org, looks pretty similar to 2006 - lots of union money, some trial lawyer money, leadership PACs, etc. There's more business money, but the money from telephone companies are a miniscule amount of the total funds Carney has raised.

It's also worth noting that one of the "corporate donors" that Blue America PAC singles out is headquartered in Pennsylvania (Comcast), another has a significant office presence in the state (Verizon Wireless), and given that he represents a fairly rural area, it's a reasonable bet that there's some telephone cooperatives in his district as well (and I don't think I've ever met anyone who's ever referred to telephone cooperatives as "big phone companies.") In other words, these aren't just "big corporate donors," they're fellow Pennsylvanians.

This, unfortunately, is where unserious thinking about money in politics leads people - incensed when they see people voting in ways they don't like, they simply lash out and accuse elected officials of "selling out" to their donors (instead of "staying bought" by their original donors, as Blue America PAC apparently thought would happen), even when the basic facts should be enough to show that no "sellout" in their right mind would accept a few shiny pennies from "big phone companies" when Blue America PAC, MoveOn.org, and others were offering more money.

Believing that a self-professed "Blue Dog" representing rural Pennsylvania would favor generally liberal donors over their constituents may not prove that "reformers" are less sophisticated than a 5-year old, but at the very least it should show that they don't quite get how money in politics works. And if ActBlue is ever interested in getting rid of those pesky electrons piling up in their bank accounts as people contribute to or thru them, I do have a jar of very shiny coins available that I might be willing to part with...