By Howard Blume
The caterers were hustling and the booze flowing at this New Year´s Eve fundraiser for a congressional candidate in the posh Holmby Hills. The mood was growing happy and generous, and campaign consultant Harvey A. Englander was convinced his guests would be willing to exceed the federal limits on contributions of $1,000 a calendar year.
But then, this was New Year`s Eve - the party technically spanned two calendars.
"I raised twice the money," recalls Englander, sitting in an office cluttered with golf collectibles. "I got the first half of it, the first $1,000, as they came in, and the second thousand as they left."
Englander grows serious for a moment. "A couple of guys joked that they wouldn´t give the other thousand when they left." He pauses, then returns to his joshing, insider´s patter. "Well, we certainly couldn´t do anything strong-armed, but you know."
"They tried afterward to say that they were drunk. But they didn´t drink that much, because I wouldn´t have allowed that. That would have been crass."
By all rights, Englander should be a worried man right now. Here he is, 46 years old, just moved into pricey offices on the 20th floor of the Biltmore Tower - and his entire profession is on the line this election season.
After all, voters will consider two campaign-finance reform initiatives on the November ballot, one more radical than the other. Propositions 208 and 212 each purport to take big money (read: special interests) out of politics. And if these initiatives create that vaunted "level playing field" for elections, who would need the crafty Englander, whom colleagues quite respectfully refer to as an attack dog. And Englander expects both to pass at the polls.
So why is this man smiling
Englander figures he knows more about politics than the reformers who penned these initiatives, and he sees ways around every provision designed to hurt his trade. As long as big money has a stake in political decisions, it will wind its influential way into the system. And if the rules get more complicated or more strict, candidates may just have to pay Englander more for his help in sorting it all out.
"I haven´t seen any reforms affect our business." Says Englander matter-of-factly. "In fact, these may actually help our business."
Englander has never met campaign fund-raising limits that he couldn´t outsmart. Legally, mind you.
Take the 1993 long-shot mayoral bid of City Councilman Joel Wachs in Los Angeles, which has contribution limits, unlike the state. Wachs lacked the financial muscle of other challengers, particularly under L.A.´s contribution limits. But Wachs did have this thing for collecting art, a pursuit that has won him the friendship of numerous artists. That´s why four well-known painters, including David Hockney, each agreed to create and donate a new work to the Wachs campaign. Englander then arranged for a limited-edition prints, which he sold for $1,000 a piece, exactly the amount of the individual contribution ceiling.
"So we sold $400,000 worth of art for the cost of just reproducing the art, which was about $7,000 as I recall."
But that was not as low on overhead as the "phantom" dinner once thrown by one of Englander´s rivals. The candidate sent out $100-a-pop invitations for a dinner that was never held. And if you specified Roquefort dressing at this phantom dinner, it cost you $25 more.
Political operatives readily circumvent the strict contribution limits at the heart of the reform propositions, according to Englander. One favorite method is "bundling." Let´s say some developers want to raise money for a candidate. "If it´s a $200 limit and they want to give $5,000, they´ll get 40 subcontractors and they´ll get their lawyers, their wives and all their other people, and they´ll go raise the $5,000."
Of course, the reforms would make it more difficult for a tobacco conglomerate to pump as much as $125,000 into a campaign at the last minute. That´s exactly what Phillip Morris did two years ago for state Assemblyman Steve Kuykendall (R-Long Beach). But bundled contributions would remain possible, and would be much harder to trace to the responsible special interest.
Bundling came of age in the 1970s, when the first campaign-reform laws were passed. As a result, "Givers have become less important and raisers have become more important," says Englander. These raisers include anyone "who can call 10 or 20 people and gather them in for breakfast or lunch and have them each write a check. There´s a known group in every town."
Incumbents and the wealthy have little trouble getting around contribution limis, adds Englander. "Incumbents will always have a lot of people out there who are willing to go out and raise money on their behalf." And as Englander notes, the courts have ruled that you can´t stop individuals from spending their own money.
Nor is Englander impressed with the ban on lobbyist contributions that is contained in both the current ballot initiatives. "It smells nice," he says. "but I know a lot of lobbyists who´ve never written their own check in their life. And does it ban a lobbyist spouse from giving? It doesn´t ban the lobbyist´s employer from giving. So I mean, there´s a lot of sizzle but no substance."
One sort of contributor, however, would be muted by the restrictions, Englander asserts. Philosophic givers, those who give because they believe in a particular candidate or in good government, are less likely to bundle contributions. Such givers, he adds, typically come from either ideological pole. On the right, they include the Ahmanson family in Orange County. On the left, they take in people such as Max Palevsky, who bankrolled the McGovern presidential campaign in its early stages. Remove these people from politics and you´re left largely with the pragmatists ? the true special interests ? who remain in the political game because they have something at stake. He objects in particular to Proposition 212, in part for mandating that 75 percent of candidates´ support must come from within their districts. That provision could shut down much of the political dialogue in poorer communities, he says.
Another gaping loophole left by both propositions is the failure to restrict so-called independent expenditures. The National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington, for example, spent a reported $650,000 to push Republican Woody Jenkins ahead of a Democrat in Louisiana´s non-partisan September primary for an open Senate seat.
Jenkins disowned the sudden spate of negative ads targeting his rivals, but the campaign continued, and Jenkins reaped the benefits without ever officially compromising his honor. "I think it´s outrageous to have an out-of-state organization come into the state and spend money without limitation attacking candidates in this race," Jenkins told National Public Radio. "And they´re doing it without my knowledge, or without my approval or involvement in any way," he protested.
The potential for abuse is plainly outlined in a passage from former Oregon Senator Bob Packwood´s diary. It records a March 6, 1992, meeting with Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas), and Gramm´s alleged promise to send the Oregon Republican party $100,000. Under the law, such money could not be sued to help an individual candidate. "You know, there can´t be any legal connection between this money and Senator Packwood, but we know that it will be used for his benefit," Packwood quotes Gramm as saying. "What was said in that room would be enough to convict us all of something," the diary notes. Gramm has denied any wrongdoing.
Another diary passage discusses a $65,000 independent pro-Packwood campaign funded by auto dealers. "Elaine has been talking to me about independent expenditures," Packwood writes. "The auto dealers are willing to do some spending. Of course, we can´t know anything about it."
Englander foresees exponential growth for independent expenditures in elections for state and local office if special-interest money has nowhere else to go.
It´s a touch critique, but politics is a tough game, as anyone spending an afternoon with Englander will learn. Englander tries to ignore calls and pages during the course of an interview, but two messages are from reporters on deadline, a must-deal-with situation for any responsible spin doctor. The issue of the day is an opposition poll claiming strong voter support for his candidate´s opponent.
"Dead fish don´t deserve to be wrapped in this," he tells the Long Beach Press Telegram. Englander will use whatever it takes to kill this nugget of bad publicity. "Anyone can take numbers out of the air and put a letterhead on them," he says. "She´s trying to get some poor sucker reporter to write a story. To be honest, you´re the first reporter thinking of running a story on this."
The spin is pretty much the same for the Whittier Daily News. "You know the Times stopped running these kinds of stories years ago. If you come down to my office, I´ll show you what a real survey is like. They won´t show you their whole survey or how they did it."
These are the real moves of a pro, and Englander has learned from the best. But his business raises up the most unusual role models. Englander can only shake his head in admiration at the fund-raising prowess of such former state legislators as Alan Robbins and Paul Carpenter.
Carpenter once got supporters to pony up $500 a person to board a DC-10 in Los Angeles and fly to Sacramento for a private nighttime tour of the state capital. (Carpenter, by the way, was later convicted of accepting bribes in a federal sting operation, and hid out in Costa Rica before authorities finally corralled him.)
Robbins was notable for his remarkable memory at fund-raisers. Instead of giving the traditional post-dinner speech, "Alan would to every table [and] introduce, without one note or one card or one prompt, every person at that table, and say something about them that he knew that was interesting." And it wasn´t just for friends and longtime acquaintances. "He knew about my wife or girlfriend or whoever was with me at the time. Every person there, he could identify that person, and he could say something about them." (Robbins was a little too adept at keeping track of whom he was beholden to. He later landed in prison through the same federal probe that nabbed Carpenter.)
Unless you´re Dick Riordan, such fundraising is a constant. And for every penny you get, 15 percent goes to the person you hired to get it and another 15 percent usually disappears into the overhead of your event. Yes, to be a candidate today, you have to be a tireless and effective beggar. But does the ability to raise money equate with the ability to govern? Englander mulls that question as though he´s never before considered it.
There is a pause, and then Englander pounces on two pieces of engraved stationery. "I have on my desk here two invitations to fund-raising events: $500 per person for Mike Antonovich, $1,000 per person for Gloria Molina. I will be at both of these events. And almost everyone who is at these events will be at both of these events." He waves the invitations. The Antonovich mail proclaims in huge letter: Music, Magic and Mike.
"Here is Antonovich in my right hand and Gloria in my left hand. These people are about as far [away] as you can find them on issues, on philosophical issues. And the same people will give money to both of them. Does this mean that Gloria is any less pure than Gloria is perceived to be? Or that Mike is as pure as Gloria? Of course not. Those people who are not philosophical givers will give to everybody."
And are they getting their money´s worth?
"Never."
Englander explains by paraphrasing the late Jesse Unruh ? and apologizing in advance for the chauvinistic analogy to come. "If you can´t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their woman, take their money, then vote against them, you don´t belong up here." He adds: "In some wasy, we´re trying to legislate that into law. You can´t do it."
"There´s no answer. That´s the nature of politics. Remember that politics, like acting, was the profession of rogues and other charlatans in years gone by." He pauses again. "It may not have changed a whole heck of a lot."
