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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Group Says Gorton Is Timber Industry’s Favorite Lawmaker Senator Who Pushed Salvage Logging Received More Timber Dollars Than Anyone Else In Congress

Danny Westneat Seattle Times

Passed in the last session of Congress, the timber-salvage rider, which suspended environmental laws to allow clearcutting of some old-growth Northwest forests, is known these days around Capitol Hill as a “Slade Special.”

That’s because Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington guided the measure through the system and his office drafted much of the controversial language that allowed loggers to resume cutting old growth trees again for the first time since the northern spotted owl drove them from the woods in 1990.

It was the top priority for the timber industry. Passage of the bill was considered the industry’s greatest legislative success in years.

Thursday, a non-profit research group released what it says is the important subtext to the timber-salvage story: a report showing that Gorton gets more money from the timber industry than any of the other 534 members of Congress.

Timber companies gave him $71,230 over the last five years, more than any other politician.

“We’re showing with this study how money buys you access, and the more you give, the more access you have,” said Jennifer Shecter of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. “That might be obvious, but these are concrete examples of how the money actually affects public policy.”

The report details 14 issues that were hotly contested in the last Congress. It found that interest groups that pumped the most money into the campaign coffers of elected officials almost always got the results they wanted.

The timber-salvage issue provides a particularly graphic example, according to the center.

Last spring, after hundreds of environmental protesters were arrested in Oregon and on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., tried to repeal the salvage law. The effort failed by a 54 to 42 vote.

The 54 senators who sided with the timber industry averaged $19,503 in contributions from timber political-action committees during the last five years. The 42 who were opposed averaged only $2,675. Murray has not received any money from the timber industry.

In tale after tale detailing votes on whether to end a sugar subsidy, pay millions for more B-2 bombers or regulate the cable-television industry, the study suggests that whoever spends the most money wins.

Gorton could not be reached for comment, but a timber-industry lobbyist disputed the implied premise of the study - that money can buy a yes or no vote on a specific issue.

“Companies give Slade Gorton money because he’s the senior senator from one of the top timber-producing states in the nation, and they agree with his approach on a range of issues, like taxes, trade and environmental restrictions,” said Chris West of the Northwest Forestry Association in Portland.

“They’re not buying his vote on one bill,” West said. “I mean, look at this the other way around. Why would anybody give money to a politician who doesn’t support your interests?”

The companies that gave Gorton the most money - Plum Creek, Weyerhaeuser, Rayonier - did not benefit much from the timber-salvage law, West added. Most of the logs went to smaller timber operations. Gorton had said one of his primary reasons for pushing the law was to save jobs at small mills or family-run logging companies located in rural areas.

In Washington’s delegation, only Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., voted against his pocketbook. He received $10,000 from timber-industry groups, but voted to repeal the salvage law after initially supporting it. The other members of the Washington delegation received an average of $9,342, and all backed the timber industry - except Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, who got nothing. Within the last year, Rep. Linda Smith, R-Wash., has said she will no longer accept donations from political-action committees.

In another example that has little to do with Washington state, the center highlighted an extraordinary relationship between voting patterns and financial contributions from a single company.

Northrop Grumman of California intensely lobbied Congress not to strip $493 million out its lucrative B-2 stealth-bomber program. The company donated $600,000 to congressional campaigns in 1995 and 1996, and virtually every member who received money voted in the company’s favor.

Of Washington’s nine House members, six received donations ranging from $1,000 to $10,000, and all voted Northrop Grumman’s way. The three who received nothing - McDermott, Smith, and Rick White, R-Wash., - all voted to trim the company’s contract.

“It’s hard to imagine that voting trends like that are just a coincidence,” Schecter said.

Northrop Grumman won the fight, keeping the full contract by a 213-210 vote. The Senate never voted on the issue.

The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics was formed in 1984 to monitor the political process. The group is financed by grants from organizations such as the Ford Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts.