Getting the Fix: Lawmakers' Targeted Favors for Top Donors
Last year, Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) took an unusual legislative interest in beauty products: She sponsored three different bills asking for a reduction in tariffs on certain eyelash curlers,pedicure and manicure sets and nail clippers.
According to paperwork filed by Hagan's office, the legislation would benefit Revlon. That company has a manufacturing plant in Oxford, N.C., but Hagan has another connection with Revlon -- MacAndrews & Forbes, the conglomerate that owns Revlon, was the 19th largest donor to hercampaign committee in 2012. The company's PAC gave her campaign $10,000 and individuals affiliated with the company (including two lobbyists working for the firm) gave another $9,500. Revlon's PAC gave another $2,500 to Hagan's leadership PAC.
According to paperwork filed by Hagan's office, the legislation would benefit Revlon. That company has a manufacturing plant in Oxford, N.C., but Hagan has another connection with Revlon -- MacAndrews & Forbes, the conglomerate that owns Revlon, was the 19th largest donor to hercampaign committee in 2012. The company's PAC gave her campaign $10,000 and individuals affiliated with the company (including two lobbyists working for the firm) gave another $9,500. Revlon's PAC gave another $2,500 to Hagan's leadership PAC.
It is not uncommon to see members of Congress sponsoring legislation that specifically benefits one organization, often in the form of tariff reductions. But Revlon's lobbying on the bills combined with its generous contributions to Hagan suggests a double-barreled approach to cutting its tariff payments.
Donations to a member of Congress who later sponsors a bill that primarily benefits the donor doesn't necessarily imply an improper quid pro quo exchange. But a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of contributions to lawmakers combined with bill sponsorship and lobbying data shows that sometimes, members of Congress have particularly symbiotic relationships with organizations in need of legislative favors.
Hagan sponsored 102 tariff reduction bills in 2012, the fifth most of any member of the House or Senate. Many of those bills benefited companies that were not top donors to Hagan. But some big contributors were advantaged, as well. Besides the bills for Revlon, Hagan also sponsored a bill to reduce the tariff on lithium chloride, reporting in her filing to the Senate Finance Committee that it was on behalf of FMC Corp. FMC's PAC gave $31,000 to Hagan in the 2012 election cycle -- $10,000 to her campaign committee and $21,000 to her leadership PAC, making it the single biggest donor to her PAC.
If it wasn't already clear who benefited from Hagan's tariff bills, the CRP analysis also showed that Revlon and FMC were the only organizations lobbying on their respective bills.
The earmarks that didn't go away
The earmarks that didn't go away
BASF, a chemical company that frequently lobbies on tariff bills, is another organization whose donations to certain lawmakers appear to coincide with sponsorship of beneficial legislation. Eight different House members who count the company as a top donor combined to sponsor 45 pieces of tariff reduction legislation; BASF was the sole entity lobbying on each of them. Three of the eight -- Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.) -- received the maximum donation of $10,000 from BASF's PAC in 2012. Luetkemeyer sponsored the greatest number of bills benefiting BASF; the chemical company was his fifth largest donor in 2012. Leutkemeyer's office did not return requests for comment.
Koch Industries had its own desires in the tariff reduction area -- for lower tariffs on twodifferent chemicals. Those were taken care of in bills sponsored by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who counted Koch as his third largest donor at $12,000.
Target Corporation, which is Sen. Amy Klobuchar's(D-Minn.) fourth largest campaign donor, was the only organization to lobby on four pieces of legislation she sponsored to reduce tariffs on bamboo baskets, bamboo kitchen devices, inflatable swimming pools and electric wine openers. The Minneapolis-based retailer gave her campaign $51,050 and her leadership PAC $25,000. Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who picked up $7,500 from the company, sponsored three identical versions of the bills on pools, kitchen devices and wine openers, and a fourth bill to lower tariffs on coupon holders.
Tariff Reduction Legislation on Finished Products
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Commonsense, a nonpartisan watchdog groupthat maintains a database of all tariff bills, said these bills bear a lot of similarities to earmarks -- which were largely done away with in 2011.
"They operate, to some extent, in the same way," he said. "There is a financial benefit to the company that is importing the good."
Ellis said it's worrisome when a company approaches a politician and asks for a specific tariff cut.
"When you have these companies, and their lobbyists, going to the lawmaker and saying, 'We want this tariff relief,' there is a chance for this sort of pay-to-play or influence gaming through campaign donations," Ellis said.
Getting the biker vote
Getting the biker vote
Though tariff reduction bills are most common, the range of bills sponsored by a lawmaker and lobbied on by a single entity that is one of his or her top donors runs the gamut.
Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) sponsored H.R. 2992, the Taiwan Airpower Modernization Act of 2011, a bill to require President Obama to authorize the sale of 66 F-16 C/D jets to Taiwan. Objections by China make the issue of military sales to Taiwan highly political, but the bill's supporters estimated the sale would be worth about $8.7 billion. The plane's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is also Granger's No. 1 campaign donor, and the only organization to lobby on the legislation. According to CRP data, Granger's campaign took $53,900 from individuals who work for Lockheed and another $10,000 from the company's corporate PAC -- which was also the third largest donor to Granger's leadership PAC,Common Sense Common Solutions, contributing another $7,500.
And in February 2012, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) sponsored H.R. 3879, the Refinery Streamlined Permitting Act of 2012, which would make new oil refinery permitting move more quickly. The only group to weigh in on it was oil giant ExxonMobil, which gave Sensenbrenner $2,000. Although ExxonMobil alone lobbied on the bill, in the 2012 cycle Sensenbrenner received $20,750 from the oil and gas industry.
Sensenbrenner also sponsored two pieces of legislation that focused, laser-like, on knocking out federal funds used by law enforcement to crack down on unhelmeted motorcycle riders by using checkpoints that selectively target them. The pair -- one a resolution and the other a bill (which he reintroduced several weeks ago) -- was lobbied by just one group: the American Motorcyclist Association, which gave his campaign $6,000, making it his 11th biggest donor.
Wayne Allard, the motorcycle group's vice president of government relations and a former U.S. senator from Colorado, said that Sensenbrenner had long been supportive of motorcyclists and the issue of checkpoints targeting helmetless bikers was a big one in Sensenbrenner's home state of Wisconsin. Allard said Sensenbrenner was supportive on the issue before donations were made.
"We pick up those who have been most supportive of us and give them higher levels of donations -- he's one" of them, Allard said.
Teachers and polar bears
According to CRP'S analysis, at least 15 members of Congress, including Hagan, count theNational Education Association as a top donor and have sponsored legislation that only the NEA has lobbied on. Some of the bills, like Hagan's resolution in support of "the goals and ideals of American Education Week", a NEA-sponsored event, are more general. Others, like Rep. Judy Biggert's (R-Ill.) H.R. 35, the Teacher Tax Reduction Act of 2011, specifically helped the individuals paying the NEA's dues and supporting the group's PAC (in this case with a proposed $500 increase in tax deductions available to teachers).
Alaska's Rep. Don Young (R) was once known for his pursuit of earmarks. But in 2011 he sponsored just one piece of legislation that a top donor took particular interest in: H.R. 39, the Polar Bear Delisting Act, which would have removed polar bears from the endangered species list and made it legal to hunt them. The only organization to lobby on it? Safari Club International, a pro-gun and hunting rights group that gave Young's campaign more than $9,100, making it his 15th highest donor.
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