Soft Money Likely To Aid Chenoweth National Republican Campaign Committee Fills State Legislators’ Coffers In 1st Congressional District

(From For the Record, November 1, 1996:) The National Republican Congressional Committee was misidentified in a story and headline in Thursday’s newspaper.

Copyright 1996, The Spokesman-Review

Corporate contributions raised by a national committee that promotes Republicans for Congress are being funneled to Idaho legislative candidates in the 1st Congressional District this year, with much of the money going into efforts to get Republican voters to the polls.

That indirectly boosts U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, although it would be illegal for the committee to spend the so-called “soft money” directly for Chenoweth’s benefit.

Craig Veith, communications director for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said the NRCC’s goal in donating $169,000 to 29 legislative candidates in Chenoweth’s district is just to promote Republicans.

“We’re just looking to build a good farm team,” Veith said.

Bill Mauk, Idaho Democratic Party chief, called that “absolute bunk.”

“None of this money would have come into Idaho if Helen Chenoweth were not on the verge of losing her election,” Mauk charged.

Complicating the issue is a scheme developed by Republican legislative leaders and the state Republican Party to funnel some of the contributions back from the legislative candidates to party groups, which then will fund targeted get-out-the-vote efforts on Election Day.

House Speaker Mike Simpson and Senate President Pro-tem Jerry Twiggs said they’ve asked candidates who got the NRCC money to give back as much as they can to either the House Republican Caucus or the Senate State Affairs Club.

Then, the House group will pay for statewide mailings aimed at turning out Republicans, and the Senate group will fund the state party’s phone bank efforts.

Simpson, who said he’s already gotten back close to the $22,500 he needs for the mailings, said, “We made sure it was all kosher, it wasn’t considered money laundering or trying to hide money or anything else.”

Mauk said, “I think it’s all highly suspicious. It is par for the course for the Republicans to move large amounts of money fast and quick during the late days of the election. It smells of impropriety.”

Rep. Wayne Meyer, R-Rathdrum, said he was “kind of speechless” when Simpson called him to tell him he’d get a $5,000 contribution from the NRCC. Meyer, whose Democratic challenger hasn’t been campaigning, said, “I told him, Mike, there’s no way I’m going to be able to spend all that money.”

Meyer said he decided to give $1,000 of it to the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee for get-out-the-vote efforts, make a $500 donation to the Kids Voting project, and turn over the remaining $3,500 to the House Republican Caucus.

“If I can help all the Republican candidates, I want to do that,” Meyer said.

First District House candidate John Campbell’s campaign turned over $3,000 of his $5,000 contribution to the House Caucus. Rep. Tom Dorr, R-Post Falls, gave back $2,500, as did Reps. Jeff Alltus and Don Pischner, both of Coeur d’Alene.

Jim Clark, who is challenging Rep. Marv Vandenberg, D-Coeur d’Alene, turned back $1,000.

“We kind of asked them to donate back what they could afford,” Simpson said.

Simpson said he’s already seen a copy of the mailing that will go out in his southeastern Idaho district.

“It doesn’t say anything about congressional candidates, it’s all legislative candidates,” he said. “It’s a nice, glossy fold-over.”

The money is from the NRCC’s non-federal fund because corporate contributions to congressional candidates are limited by law. Idaho is one of eight states that allows legislative candidates to accept donations from businesses. The state sets no limits.

Gary Moncrief, a political science professor at Boise State University, said Idaho seems to be following a national trend in which soft money is being used to skirt campaign finance laws.

“I think the way that so much of the soft money’s being spent this year nationally violates the spirit of the law. It’s supposed to go to get-out-the-vote and party-building, and it’s clear that so much of it is really being used to try to influence the outcome of congressional races.”

The stakes are especially high this year, Moncrief said, because the two parties are battling nationwide for control of Congress.

Two of the 29 legislative candidates who received the contributions, Hal Bunderson of Meridian and John Andreason of Boise, are unopposed.

Andrew Arulanandam, executive director of the Idaho Republican Party, said that’s because their opponents dropped out after the NRCC already had decided to make the donations.

Sen. Gordon Crow, R-Hayden, said he used part of his $7,000 contribution to hire John Grotta & Associates, a Washington, D.C., get-out-the-vote specialist, to run phone banks for his campaign. From a list of 7,000 to 8,000 reliably Republican voters in his district, Crow hopes Grotta will reach at least half and encourage them to turn out to vote.

Twiggs said he thought the state party also would use Grotta. Grotta was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Twiggs said he decided the NRCC money should be spread statewide, although “I suspect it was their intention to have it in the 1st District.”

“I was glad to have the money, and glad to see our candidates get it,” he said.

Simpson said, “If there’s a heavy turnout of Republicans to elect state legislators, then you’ve gotta believe that that probably helps Helen, too. But I take ‘em at their word of what their goal is, that they’re trying to build a farm team.”

, DataTimes