POLITICS-US: Big Corporations Underwrite Party Conventions

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Anna Blackden and Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 2000 (IPS) - “He who pays the piper,” according to one of the oldest axioms in use in the United States, “calls the tune.”

So what to make of the fact that most of the 70 million dollars in costs of the Republican Party’s national convention, which got underway in Philadelphia Monday, will be paid by big US corporations?

And that much the same will be true for the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles in two weeks?

Nothing, insist the sponsors. They say they are only doing their civic duty, and that voters should not consider corporate contributions to the conventions to be different from advertising for major sports events, like the Superbowl.

But to others, especially those who favour Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, the corporate sponsorship of the conventions, like the campaigns themselves, speaks volumes about what interests ultimately control the US political process.

“The national conventions used to be an integral component of American democracy,” writes David Enrich in this week’s ‘Nation’ magazine. “Now they’re just another channel through which corporations corrupt our political life.”

The conventions of the two major parties will cost a total of more than 120 million dollars – roughly the same amount of foreign direct investment which flowed into Ghana and Zimbabwe in 1998.

Of that amount, the federal government will contribute 13.5 million dollars to each, and local governments, eager to promote tourism, a few million dollars more.

The balance will come from so-called “host committees” in each of the two convention cities which are authorised by law to raise as much money as they want from corporations and wealthy individuals.

Such corporate-financed “host committees” are playing a growing role in public life in the United States, as corporations increasingly sponsor events ranging from local parades to nightly news on the public television network.

Even important international conferences are underwritten by big business. Last year, for example, corporate donations, mostly from major arms contractors, covered about one-third of NATO’s 50th anniversary summit celebrations here in Washington. Several months later, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Seattle was heavily financed by big companies, all of them highly dependent on trade.

On the domestic political front, big corporations usually dole out money to both major parties (although Republican candidates generally attract substantially more corporate money than Democrats).

For the two major-party conventions, for example, AT&T, General Motors, and Microsoft Corporation are each contributing 1 million dollars in cash and services.

Millions of dollars more are being donated in somewhat more partisan ways by a veritable who’s who of US industry, such as Bell Atlantic Co, BP Amoco, Motorola, United Parcel Service, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing.

It was not supposed to be this way. Indeed, Congress started earmarking funds for the political conventions back in 1974, immediately after President Richard Nixon was forced to resign due to the Watergate scandal, precisely because of disclosures surrounding ITT Corporation’s 400,000 dollar contribution to the 1972 Republican convention which was apparently designed to encourage Nixon’s Justice Department to settle an outstanding anti-trust case on favourable terms.

Today, donors are not so direct, according to experts. “In return for contributions, they do expect a higher degree of access, but (they hold) no illusions about receiving a quick quid pro quo in return,” says Shelia Krumholz of the independent Center for Responsive Politics here. “If a ‘tit for tat’ service is uncovered, it’s actionable (in court),” she notes.

On the other hand, the fact that most of the big contributors are in industries, such as telecommunications, finance and defence, which face heavy government regulation, is no coincidence. Microsoft is currently appealing a major anti-trust decision; AT&T is hoping its merger with Media One will not be opposed by the government; and General Motors is always under constant threat from local and national clean-air laws and related regulations.

Still, most corporate spokesmen insist that their contributions are spurred by innocent motives, such as advertising, if not outright altruism.

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin, a major contractor for a national missile defence system whose development and deployment are being considered now by President Bill Clinton and Congress, told the Washington Post that its 100,000-dollar contributions to each convention were “part of good government. We support the democratic process.”

Aside from the direct contributions to the conventions, many corporations are hosting parties for delegates – many of whom serve in Congress and in statehouses across the United States – at the convention. This permits them to literally “rub elbows” with policy-makers whose good offices they may need now or in the future.

All of this corporate generosity bolsters the charge, made with increasing effectiveness this year by Nader that the parties essentially are in the pocket of the big corporations, and often the same ones at that.

“Up against corporate government, voters find themselves asked to choose between look-alike candidates from two parties vying to see who takes the orders from their campaign paymasters and their future employers,” he said recently. “The difference (between Republican candidate George W.) Bush and (Vice President Al) Gore is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door.”

Nader who, according to recent polls, is supported by as much as 10 percent of the electorate in key swing states in the West and Northeast, has set a goal of raising 5 million dollars for his presidential campaign. The Republicans have spent more than twice that amount just to outfit their convention hall in Philadelphia.

Moreover, the massive corporate funding of the convention – as well as the actual presidential campaigns which are likely to have cost hundreds of million dollars by November when the balloting takes place – is effectively distancing average citizens from the process, according to many analysts. The result is that politics is becoming “more of a spectator sport than a participatory sport,” according to CPR’s Larry Makinson.

“No one should sell access to us,” according to Michigan Congressman Sander Levin, a Democrat. “The government should be available to the people without charge.”