Deadlock in D.C. fueled fundraising

Hot issue, FEC deadline key factors

Monday, October 7, 2013

WASHINGTON - While Congress debated and ultimately shut down the federal government early last week, money was flowing to political candidates and ideological groups.

A key source for fundraising was the closely watched race between U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat from Little Rock, and U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Dardanelle. The Senate seat is seen by some Republicans and conservative groups as a potential pickup that would help them reclaim a majority of seats in the chamber.

Because the U.S. House and Senate could not come to terms, an agreement to temporarily fund the operation of the government was not reached by the end of the federal fiscal year Sept. 30 and many federal agencies and services closed Tuesday morning.

Sept. 30 was also the deadline to report fundraising in the last quarter to the Federal Election Commission, a date candidates and political action committees were sure to mention while asking for donations over the past 10 days. In the days before the shutdown, supporters were bombarded with emails from candidates, campaigns and political action committees asking for donations.

Frequent donation requests are not unusual. As the cost of campaigns have escalated, many members spend hours a day soliciting funds. The race between Pryor and Cotton is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville associate political science professor Andrew Dowdle, who teaches about campaigns and elections, said polarizing issues such as the federal health-care law are effective ways to raise money because most people who contribute to candidates are highly partisan.

The shutdown is a “highly visible event where its really kind of easy to divide the two parties along the two lines,” Dowdle said.

He said members constantly receive calls and emails from constituents. But caring enough about an issue to send this money is a tangible show of support, Dowdle said.

Combine a divisive issue in Congress and an FEC deadline and “it’s almost like a double witching hour in some sense,” he said.

Dowdle said voters who don’t support a specific party may find it unseemly to raise money while sending hundreds of thousands of federal workers home without pay, closing museums and monuments and cutting public services.

“Your average voter would have a problem with this in terms of it really does look like political opportunism, but at this stage it’s how fundraising ends up working,” Dowdle said.

Since the shutdown, fundraisers and emails soliciting donations have dropped sharply.

In an email to supporters requesting funds Sept. 22, Cotton’s campaign referred to a sticking point in reaching an agreement, a subsidy to help congressmen and staff members pay for insurance they are required by law to purchase through an online insurance pool. Cotton has called it unfair. Democrats compare it to the share a company pays toward its employees’ insurance plan.

“The first step to getting rid of Obamacare and the congressional exemption is getting rid of one of its top defenders!” the email states.

Cotton campaign manager Justin Brasell wouldn’t comment beyond pointing out that the congressman hasn’t sent out a fundraising email since the government shutdown began.

Pryor’s campaign used the issue to seek money as well.

On Sept. 27, it sent an email to supporters from Pryor’s father, former U.S. Sen. David Pryor, asking for donations, saying Cotton is “against everything.”

“He’s even willing to force our government to shut down, even though it will hurt Arkansas seniors, small businesses and military families,” it states, urging donors to help the senator raise $75,000 by the Sept. 30 deadline.

Pryor said Friday that the quarterly fundraising deadline and the end of the fiscal year coincided, so it’s not surprising that the fundraising appeals mentioned the budget impasse.

“That was just sort of the headline that was leading the news,” he said. “Naturally you would receive solicitation from various campaigns [at the end of the fundraising period.]”

The three other U.S.

representatives from Arkansas are Republicans who currently have no challengers. None of them have sent fundraising appeals to potential donors in recent weeks.

U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, a Republican from Little Rock, said it was up to each member to decide whether to raise money while Congress debated keeping government functioning.

“I just didn’t think it was appropriate,” Griffin said. “I just didn’t feel comfortable doing that.”

Arkansas politicians weren’t the only ones raising funds in the waning days before the shutdown.

Reclaim America PAC, a conservative political action committee created by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, urged supporters Wednesday to back Cotton by sending his campaign at least $5.

“The left is afraid of Tom and for good reason. They’re already funneling money to Arkansas in an attempt to stop him from defeating one of President Obama’s most reliable Senate votes,” it states.

The national Democratic Party sent a release to supporters saying it raised nearly $1 million during a 21-hour speech by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a week before.

Another said “What the Republicans are trying to do to President Obama right now is unprecedented. We need to have an unprecedented response.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee also asked supporters for donations in the days before the shutdown.

On Sept. 26 the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent supporters a fundraising request from President Barack Obama saying that Republicans had gone too far.

“I won’t let the Republicans prevent 30 million people from getting health insurance, and I won’t let them inflict economic pain on millions more just so they can make an ideological point,” it states.

Several members of Congress canceled campaign fundraisers scheduled around the shutdown. According to the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington nonprofit that tries to make government more transparent, the number of fundraisers it spotted dropped dramatically after the shutdown and FEC deadline, from more than five a day to one or two a day.

A $2,500-a-person trout fishing weekend at Gaston’s White River Resort to benefit U.S. Sen. John Boozman, a Republican from Rogers, went ahead as scheduled, but the senator did not attend.

“He’s committed to being here until this is resolved,” Boozman spokesman Patrick Creamer said.

Cotton got dinged by the Arkansas Democratic Party the week before the shutdown for attending a fundraiser in Houston and missing two votes. Neither vote was close.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/07/2013