Delay’s Advocate

Mark Kennedy wants to be your U.S. Senator. Minnesotans already voted him into the U.S. House over three consecutive elections; first in the second district, then the sixth. Clear civic knowledge indicates that a vote for Kennedy also means voting for former House majority leader, Tom DeLay. This can't bode well for Kennedy. Magazines have compared DeLay to a modern-day Boss Tweed, reaping votes any way he can, accused of throwing ethics off Capitol Hill. DeLay has changed the way legislation is passed in this country. An indictment awoke a nation to this. But it doesn't stop there. He is connected to nearly every elected Republican today. Although Kennedy isn't as entangled with DeLay as other Republicans, an analysis of Kennedy's career suggests he's become a pawn in the Hammer's game. Through campaign contributions and lucrative fund-raisers, to bankable committee placements, DeLay knows he can nearly always receive Kennedy's final vote, whether it's for protecting polluters in Minnesota or lowering the U.S. House's ethical standards.

DeLay is a kingmaker in the Republican House, known for rewarding those who toe the party line—and breaking those who go astray. When Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) diverted from DeLay’s demands and co-authored legislation that reformed campaign-finance laws, he was denied a committee chairmanship normally bestowed upon those with his seniority. As majority leader, DeLay designated committee placements in the Republican House. He also steered power by showering Republicans with money from his national political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), and a fund-raising event he created in 1999 called the Retaining Our Majority Program (ROMP). Kennedy benefitted from both in past campaigns.

However, it was money circulated through DeLay’s state PAC, Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), that caught DeLay in two indictments. He is accused of conspiring with James W. Ellis, director of ARMPAC, and another aide in a money laundering scheme.

Texas law says corporate money cannot be spent on state campaigns. The indictments say DeLay’s TRMPAC sent money to the Republican National Committee in exchange for $190,000 in contributions without corporate ties, making it possible for TRMPAC to give this money to Texas candidates. The indictment accuses Ellis of arranging the transaction. He was indicted last fall for his alleged involvement.

Kennedy’s detractors have called on him to return money he received from ARMPAC because it is connected to DeLay and Ellis. (Also important to note is that TRMPAC was created with $50,000 in seed money from the national committee.) Kennedy received $29,500 between 2000 and 2004, putting him in the top 10 for DeLay’s beneficiaries. But $29,500 is a small portion of DeLay’s business relationship with the Sixth District’s representative. Analyzing the money and power granted to Kennedy throughout his career by DeLay is a good introduction into how American politics function today.

Kennedy’s financial ties with DeLay date back to 2000, when the Minnesotan initially ran for the U.S. House. It was then that DeLay’s ARMPAC first donated to Kennedy the yearly maximum of $10,000. It wasn’t much. In fact, it didn’t help Kennedy win an impressive victory. He won by a mere 155 votes. But this narrow margin sparked a relationship between the congressmen. It led to Kennedy’s participation in ROMP.

ROMP is DeLay’s brainchild. It’s a fund-raiser, organized with Ellis’ help, for Republican candidates who face stiff odds in an upcoming election. Kennedy fit into this category after his slim win in 2000. Washington, D.C., newspaper The Hill reported that DeLay and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) handpicked Kennedy to participate in the fund-raiser with five other Republicans in 2001. Their goal was to secure up to $100,000 in each candidate’s campaigns by June 30. DeLay successfully did this by encouraging Republicans with surplus funds to donate to weaker candidates. Many of these candidates with money to spare also received funding from ARMPAC, such as Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), who received $15,765 from the committee. It’s a similar practice seen in the TRMPAC indictment, except legal. A political action committee can’t contribute more than $10,000 to a candidate per election. ARMPAC is able to donate the maximum to whomever. It’s up to the recipient, such as Hayworth, to decide whether they’ll make a contribution to another candidate from their own PAC. DeLay, however, is very good at making people follow his party line.

The event didn’t come free to Kennedy. He paid DeLay $500 for sponsoring the event on May 9, 2001. The money, however, didn’t leave his hands for long. Roll Call later reported that each candidate received about $132,000 from the ROMP event. And a similar event in early June raised at least another $10,000 for each participant. This means DeLay was responsible for at least $142,000 in Kennedy’s campaign fund by June 2001. By the end of the year, ARMPAC piled on nearly $10,000 more to the summit of cash.

KENNEDY boasts an interesting voting record in 2001. Throughout his career, he rarely diverges from DeLay’s path. Prior to the ROMP event, Kennedy never voted against DeLay on a piece of legislation. A common occurrence in Kennedy’s voting behavior blossomed in his first year on Capitol Hill. The two congressmen do, on rare occasions, vote against each other. But Kennedy saves most of these votes for times that can be categorized as politically safe. For instance, Kennedy voted against DeLay on a number of amendments to bills in 2001. Before passing a large piece of legislation, No Child Left Behind, for example, Congress usually votes beforehand on whether or not specific amendments will be included in the final legislation. No Child Left Behind was certain to pass in the House. It had bi-partisan support. If Kennedy voted against DeLay on a couple amendments to the act, he didn’t face political repercussions. No Child Left Behind was going to pass no matter what. These are times that Kennedy disagrees with DeLay. Otherwise, he votes the party line. Except on one occasion.

In 2001, Kennedy was on the House Agriculture Committee. A major farm bill called the Farm Security Act was up for a vote in early October. The bill’s proponents said it would help rural farmers prosper. It was likely to pass but not in DeLay’s favor. He and Kennedy disagreed on three different amendments before the final vote. And Kennedy did something interesting: He voted against DeLay and helped pass the bill.

It should be noted that a politician who sits on a committee often receives large contributions from whatever industry the committee represents. Agribusiness wanted to see the Farm Security Act pass. During the election cycle including 2001, Kennedy received $163,383 from PACs representing agribusiness. He has not seen agriculture dollars that high in a subsequent election period. At the time, they exceeded DeLay’s helping hand by about $10,000.

Kennedy voted with agribusiness in 2001.

2002, however, was a major year in Kennedy’s voting career. He voted alongside DeLay more than in any other session in Congress. We’ve already mentioned that a majority of Kennedy’s votes align with the Representative from Texas. What does this mean, exactly? Republicans are expected to vote on their side of the aisle, just as Democrats are expected to do on their side. That is, unless it conflicts with their state’s best interest. Earlier this year, the League of Conservation Voters named Kennedy part of “Tom’s Tainted Team” for voting with DeLay rather than the interest of Minnesota.

Earlier this year, the House voted on an energy bill that, like its two predecessors, protected polluters from an obligation to clean groundwater they contaminated with MTBE. MTBE is a chemical often found in drinking water. Data on the chemical is limited and can’t determine whether it’s an actual health risk. At high doses, however, it is deemed a potential human carcinogen. Rather than make polluters clean up contaminated waters, the bill asked taxpayers to pay the cost.
The legislation allowing protection to polluters was largely spearheaded by DeLay. Minnesota has 27 water systems contaminated with MTBE. Kennedy’s district has four contaminated water systems. The congressman took $7,000 from a major MTBE manufacturer in 2004. On June 10, 2004, he received $10,000 from DeLay’s national political action committee. Five days later, he voted to protect polluters from cleaning up their mess.

BARELY two weeks into 2003, after a year of rarely wavering from DeLay’s ideology, the majority leader took Kennedy off the Agriculture Committee and placed him on the Financial Services Committee. This panel has jurisdiction over commercial banks, insurance companies and other related industries. Being on the Financial Services Committee is a lucrative position. It isn’t a secret that the industry it presides over donates large amounts of money to committee members. The Center for Responsive Politics says the Financial Services Committee “has long been considered a ‘big money’ panel, with jurisdiction over commercial banks and savings and loans that traditionally have been very generous with their campaign contributions to committee members.” This proves true in Kennedy’s position.

In the first election cycle on the finance committee, Kennedy received $301,677 from the industry it regulated. This is nearly double what he received from agribusiness when serving on the Agriculture Committee. The financial industry greatly increased contributions when Kennedy switched committees. When he wasn’t on the finance committee, the industry contributed $152,378, nearly half as much as when he sat on financial services.

The trend continues today. During the current Senate race, Kennedy has already received more than double from the financial industry than he has from agriculture. It is true that Kennedy has an extensive business background. Before running for Congress, he worked as a CFO for ShopKo and Department 56. He is likely to understand the industry he presides over. But experience has taken a backseat in DeLay’s House. Rep. Shays could attest to that when he was denied a chairmanship after serving on the Government Reform Committee nearly twice as long as the congressman who received the position. DeLay’s practice of rewarding those who cling to his side also merged into the Republican Senate, as reported by the Washington Post. For example, Sen. John McCain has firsthand experience watching glaciers melt and often publicly expresses a need for America to deal with global warming. However, he no longer sits as chairman on the science committee and the chairman of the environmental committee believes global warming is a hoax.

WHEN 2004 came, accusations began to heat up that DeLay played outside ethical and legal boundaries. Aside from the allegations named in his indictment, he has been accused of the following unethical practices: In an action that violated House rules, he offered to endorse a Senator’s son in a congressional race in exchange for the Senator’s vote on the Medicare bill. In another instance, he created a charity for abused children as a front to collect funds from interest groups. Rather than neglected children, some of the proceeds went to a rock concert, dinners and Broadway tickets during the New York City Republican convention. Another example occurred when an energy company was led to believe that a $56,500 contribution to DeLay’s PAC would give them a voice in what language is included in an energy bill. The list could go on.

Even with his ethics in question, he still conducted business like he did in previous years. In June, as noted before, ARMPAC donated $10,000 to Kennedy. Four months later, a series of votes intended to unseat an indicted majority leader began to pour across the House floor.

In October, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi introduced a House measure to hire an outside counsel to probe DeLay’s conduct. Kennedy voted against it.

On Nov. 17, House Republicans voted on whether to change an ethics rule. Prior House rules said a majority leader must automatically step down from their position if they are indicted. It was a secret vote conducted behind closed doors. Unlike most votes, politicians didn’t need to tell the public how they voted. Numerous weblogs, both local and national, called their representatives by phone to ask how they voted on the measure. According to the blogs Talking Points Memo and Minnesota Republican Watch, they were initially told by Kennedy staffers that a vote did not occur when they called the representative’s office. This is strange because every other Minnesota Republican said a vote took place.

It soon became widely known to the public that a vote did, in fact, occur. But Kennedy’s office refused to say how he voted. His staffers have said that divulging a private vote by the congressman is not office policy. Two weeks after the closed-door vote, six protesters stood outside Kennedy’s St. Cloud office, demanding to get an answer on how he voted. The six protesters, organized by DFL volunteer Ric Studer, eventually entered his office. The protesters say that Kennedy’s staff admitted that he voted to loosen the rule. But the St. Cloud Times reported that the congressman’s spokeswoman declined to comment immediately after the event. Another newspaper quoted a Kennedy spokesperson who disputed the protesters’ account of the incident. To this day, Kennedy has not issued a statement on how he voted on this measure.

In January of this year, a third vote asked legislators whether they hoped to look into DeLay’s campaign finance deals. Congresspeople were asked whether an investigation of DeLay’s ethical issues needed a majority on the Ethics Committee to be in favor of it moving forward, rather than allow an investigation to automatically commence after 45 days. Kennedy voted to require a majority vote by the Ethics Committee. The Pioneer Press wrote the following April that the committee didn’t move on an investigation for several months. At the time, two congressmen who contributed to DeLay’s legal defense fund sat on the Ethics Committee. Their conflict of interest may have hindered a majority. They didn’t step down from DeLay’s investigation until May, after Democrats called for their removal.

Thus far, Kennedy has not publically commented on whether he approves of DeLay. His office released this statement after the majority leader’s indictment: “We have a system of laws bigger than any one man or any one office. Tom DeLay will have to deal with the case down in Texas, the same as any American citizen.”

This all leads into today. Since Mark Kennedy first stepped onto the House floor, he’s taken $29,500 from ARMPAC. He received at least $142,000 from fund-raisers executed by DeLay. He participated in a fund-raiser organized and created by men indicted for money laundering and conspiracy to launder money. DeLay appointed Kennedy to a committee known for receiving large campaign contributions. And Kennedy voted not once, but three times to keep a man with questionable ethics in high power. Remember, this is the same man who attacked his 2004 opponent, Patty Wetterling, for taking money from MoveOn.org.

Kennedy might save political face if he returns the $29,500 to ARMPAC. At least two Republicans recently returned funds they received from the political action committee. Similar to last year, the DFL is calling on Minnesota Republicans to return their ARMPAC funds. Minnesota Rep. John Kline, who received even more contributions from ARMPAC than Kennedy, has said he will return the contributions if they are deemed illegal. Kennedy, however? As of September 30, his office said he didn’t have any plans to return the money.

For the moment, it’s easy to argue that Kennedy has little reason to return ARMPAC funds because the PAC wasn’t named in the indictment. A Federal Election Commission audit released last month, however, indicates that ARMPAC also appears to be in trouble. The audit says DeLay’s national PAC improperly spent nearly $203,500 in the 2002 elections. This is the same election cycle that ARMPAC donated nearly $10,000 to Kennedy. He also participated in ROMP during this cycle. The PAC broke election laws in 2001-2 by using the wrong account to pay its expenses. This allowed the PAC to spend more money on Congressional races than the legal limit in 2002. The PAC was supposed to pay for 93 percent of its administrative costs with “hard” money, cash designated for federal campaigns. But they split expenses evenly between hard and soft money. The split gave them more money to splash onto federal races.

Craig Holman, campaign finance lobbyist for the group Public Citizen, was quoted in the Austin American-Statesman last month, saying the FEC audit revealed a spending pattern similar to the political action committee involved in the indictment, TRMPAC. “It shows the same pattern of mixing up soft and hard money and using it for illegal campaign purposes,” Holman told the newspaper, “It’s indicative that Tom DeLay has been playing fast and loose with soft money all along.”

A lawyer for ARMPAC, Donald F. McGhan II, played down what the audit found and told reporters that it revealed honest mistakes while keeping their books. “In the scale of audits, this is a pretty clean audit,” he said.

Political watchdog groups anticipate that ARMPAC will pay a large fine because of the amount of money involved. If the political action committee made these errors by accident, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics foresees the FEC imposing a $500,000 fine. If ARMPAC knowingly broke election law, the fine might increase to $1.5 million.

THE 2006 Senate election is more than 12 months away. But political writers already question whether Kennedy’s ties to DeLay will ruin his campaign. Although premature, a Zogby poll recently asked voters who they will vote for in Minnesota’s 2006 Senate race. Kennedy fell behind his two likeliest Democratic challengers. He trailed by 6.1 points behind Amy Klobuchar and 3.2 points behind Wetterling.

Kennedy recently sent a letter expressing fear that Democrats will participate in “dirty tricks” against him during the election by digging into his personal records. However, little needs to be surfaced. His public record already suggests how politics work—or don’t work—in America today. It is difficult to find coincidence in the cause and effect of money and power in DeLay’s political machine.