Dialing For Dollars

 By way of background, with their prospects for November quickly deteriorating, Congressional Democrats are scrambling to assemble the financial resources they hope can stave off their electoral Armageddon. Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team are putting a lot of pressure on Democrat members to pony up campaign contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The pressure is especially strong on members from “safe” districts, who need little campaign money of their own to win reelection. The catch, though, is that many of these members haven’t amassed vast campaign war chests, for the simple reason that they haven’t needed them. So, they are scrambling to meet their Pelosi-imposed obligations. Holmes Norton is from one such “safe” district–the District of Columbia. In the following voicemail recording, Holmes Norton seeks a campaign contribution from the lobbyist and even mentions that she hadn’t previously asked for a donation. Such is the pressure Speaker Pelosi has placed on the members. But, it is the content of Holmes Norton’s message that is interesting. Most people think contributors call the tune, but in fact the far bigger risk is on display here -- pressure on contributors from entrenched incumbents. Is the Norton case one of extortion? Not quite, but the moral hazards of that sort are clear-cut. Safe-seat incumbents (which is to say, in most years, most incumbents) know they are likely to win with or without a given contributor's dash. That's probably still true even this year, although anxieties about re-election are clearly running higher than normal. A contributor who demands a quid pro quo on anything other than a very small scale doesn't have as much leverage as most people think. By contrast, the incumbent who tells a possible contributor that "the train is leaving the station" on this or that issue (or who uses other clichés to that effect) can exert a great deal of pressure and may well get a contribution. (Challengers, obviously, can't do that...). Maybe this is a case that cries out for campaign finance reform, but I'd suggest that such reforms should focus less on clamping down on contributors than on providing resources, perhaps public as well as private, in ways that will increase competition for seats










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