Gopac Probe Isn’t Arcane, It’s A Question Of Influence-Peddling

At a planning meeting at a remote Colorado retreat in August 1990, top staff and major donors of GOPAC, the Republican political action committee, debated broadcasting commercials urging voters to elect a Republican Congress.

A transcript of the meeting shows a heated debate over whether the group, limited to funding state and local candidates, would be violating federal election law with such an ad campaign.

“They would say you are influencing federal elections,” one unidentified participant warned of the proposal. “I am sure that any district court judge you find anywhere would quickly say you are attempting to influence federal elections.”

The commercials were never produced. But five years later, that debate is, in fact, the subject of a lawsuit in which the Federal Election Commission accuses GOPAC of becoming involved in federal elections without registering with the FEC and complying with federal disclosure rules and contribution limits.

Last week, as part of the case, the FEC released thousands of pages of internal GOPAC documents turned over as part of the court case - including the Colorado transcript - to bolster its argument GOPAC committed numerous violations of law, including providing extensive “support” to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., in his close 1990 reelection race. At the time, Gingrich was general chairman of GOPAC.

The debate between the FEC and GOPAC sounds like an arcane issue of federal election law: whether GOPAC was operating as a federal political action committee before May 1991, when it registered with the commission.

But the question of whether GOPAC engaged in federal activities before then has important real-world ramifications.

According to the documents made public by the FEC, a number of donors gave tens of thousands of dollars to GOPAC with no disclosure requirements. If GOPAC were a federal political action committee, it would have been required to identify anyone who donated more than $200, and the recipient of any contribution or expense of more than $200. In addition, it would have had to abide by federal contribution limits; individual donations to GOPAC would have been limited to $5,000, and GOPAC would not have been allowed to accept any corporate donations.

For GOPAC, operating outside federal election law gave it far more freedom to raise and spend funds than it now has as a declared federal PAC.

Indeed, the documents released by the FEC show GOPAC aides and contributors, as well as Gingrich, were acutely aware of the limitations - and benefits - of being free from FEC oversight.

In a Feb. 25, 1988, letter to Gingrich, GOPAC counsel Daniel J. Swillinger, responding to Gingrich’s inquiry “about GOPAC”s efforts at strengthening the Republican Party in congressional districts,” cautioned the congressman that GOPAC was “prohibited by its charter and by law from contributing to federal candidates.” On the other hand, he noted, GOPAC could accept “unlimited” contributions from individuals and corporations.

Two years later, GOPAC finance director June Weiss wrote a large donor, “As you know, GOPAC is not a federal committee. We will in fact do the recruiting and work with those candidates up to the time they declare their candidacy, at which point the National Republican Congressional Committee will take over.”

The federal election law applies to organizations that operate “for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office.”

GOPAC contends that until 1991 it did not meet that test because it was not giving money to congressional candidates or otherwise trying to influence federal races. Rather, GOPAC argues, its role then was to develop a “farm team” of state and local officials who eventually could run for federal office.

While GOPAC’s ultimate, and publicly stated, goal was a Republican takeover of Congress, the group argues, that alone did not mean it had to comply with federal rules. “Its major purpose was to prepare the way to eventual achievement of a Republican majority,” not to support “any particular federal candidate,” GOPAC lawyer Peter Derry argued in court papers last week.

But the FEC contends the group should have complied with the election law by 1989, two years before it registered as a PAC, because, according to the FEC, GOPAC’s involvement went well beyond the generalized hope for a Republican Congress.

The primary focus of the FEC’s complaint is a 1989-90 GOPAC direct mailing called the “Campaign for Fair Elections.” GOPAC mailed 800,000 packets asking contributors to send in a “citizen’s veto” form assailing congressional franking privileges that let lawmakers use the postal service at taxpayer expense.

In a letter included in the packet, Gingrich asked for help to “break the Democrats’ iron grip on Congress by building a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.” He outlined an “ambitious” plan “to overturn a Democratic reign that’s lasted 35 years.” The GOPAC mailing triggered a complaint to the FEC by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the fund-raising arm for House Democrats, which accused GOPAC of flouting the election laws.

On May 7, 1991, the FEC found “reason to believe” GOPAC had violated the law. The next day, GOPAC registered as a federal political committee. But the dispute over GOPAC’s previous activities continued, and the FEC filed suit in District Court here last year alleging GOPAC should have registered earlier.

Last week, the FEC added a barrage of what it said was additional evidence GOPAC interfered in federal elections. It cited an August 1988 GOPAC direct mailing that asked contributors to “sign the personal message of support to Vice President (George) Bush,” promising Bush “my support and my vote” in his campaign “against the liberal/Democratic Party coalition headed by Michael (S.) Dukakis.”

Other GOPAC letters singled out then-Speaker Jim Wright, D-Tex. a target of fierce Gingrich attacks over ethics. In a December 1987 letter, GOPAC wrote, “I promise you that in the months ahead, we will continue to expose the sleazy behavior of House Democrats, including Speaker Wright, as part of our campaign to elect a Republican House majority and clean up Congress.”

But the juiciest part involved Gingrich. Among the items:

Minutes from a June 1989 long-range planning meeting that stated “Newt must be re-elected” to Congress.

Discussion of “Newt support” - estimated by one GOPAC official to be about $250,000 in 1990 - by having GOPAC pay salary and travel expenses of political consultants “to help Newt think.”

At one meeting, “help” for Gingrich was identified as “probably the most single high priority we’ve got in dollars.”

Despite this evidence, the FEC faces a tough climb in its lawsuit, in part because the judge overseeing the case, senior U.S. District Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer, has imposed a stringent test for determining whether GOPAC was in fact a political committee under the federal election law.

Under Oberdorfer’s standard, the FEC must prove GOPAC’s “major objective, was, in fact, to elect a particular federal candidate or particular federal candidates.”

The FEC acknowledged the difficulty of this task by asking Oberdorfer in its papers last week to reconsider his statement of the law and adopt a broader interpretation of political committee.

Allowing groups like GOPAC to avoid registering, the FEC argued, would subvert the purposes of the federal election law by allowing them to engage in a wide array of activities without public disclosure.