Allen, Baldacci below average in fund raising

WASHINGTON – Soon Rep. Tom Allen’s friends will receive a phone call from the congressman. “It’s that time of the year,” he will say, reminding them that he’d like them to attend his fund-raiser in Washington, D.C., at the end of March.

“Most of my funding comes from a network of friends and people I know,” Allen said, adding that he holds a couple of fund-raisers in Washington and three or four in Maine in off-election years.

“You set up a budget for re-election, and then you figure out the money sources,” said Jackie Potter, Allen’s chief of staff. She said it “is part of what we have to do.”

This week, as the Senate considers campaign finance reform, Allen and Rep. John Baldacci said they hope for significant changes in the fund-raising process. Both support the Shays-Meehan bill, the House counterpart to McCain-Feingold. The bill would ban soft-money contributions and raise disclosure requirements.

“Campaign finance reform is long overdue,” Baldacci said. “It is needed to diminish the influence of money in our political process and reduce the amount of time devoted to fund raising.”

The average Democratic incumbent in the House raised $833,468 for the 2000 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics.

Both House members from Maine stayed far below that average, according to their Federal Election Commission year-end reports. Baldacci raised $505,992 and Allen raised $667,259. Republican House incumbents raised an average of $951,179.

“I have been able to run my campaigns with fewer resources than many of my colleagues,” Baldacci said. “Maine candidates have the benefit of being in a relatively inexpensive media market,” he said, adding that he also campaigns in person as much as possible, rather than relying on television commercials.

Baldacci received $315,042, or 62.3 percent of all his donations, from political action committees. Almost half of these donations, $147,700, came from labor PACs.

Transportation union PACs donated $52,500 to Baldacci’s campaign. A third of this money came from aviation PACs. In fact, both the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the Airline Pilots Association ranked high on the contributors’ list, with donations of $9,500 and $6,500, respectively.

But Baldacci, who is a member of the Transportation Committee and its Aviation Subcommittee, said that large donations do not influence his decisions. “My work in Washington, and the decisions I make as a member of Congress, are influenced by only one consideration – whether my actions will be in the best interest of Maine,” he said.

Allen, who received 31.5 percent of his contributions from PACs, said he knows most of the contributors personally and believes they donate because they support his political ideology.

Baldacci’s contributors were centered in the Bangor area ($35,300), and Portland ($18,750). Though Portland is not in the 2nd District, people in that area still care about what happens in the northern district and want to make sure Democrats represent the whole state, explained Adam Thompson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party.

Best-selling author Stephen King and his wife, Tabitha, of Bangor donated $1,000 each.

Former Rep. James Longley, who was elected in 1994 and served one term in the House, said he did not spend as much time on fund raising as his staff would have liked, a factor that might have cost him re-election in 1996.

Longley said he “clearly felt the pressure” from interest groups to vote in their favor. “One group threatened to withhold support,” he said. “But I never compromised my integrity for fund-raising purposes.”

However, he added, he would understand if some members of Congress could not stand the pressure. “Temptation is a part of life,” Longley said.

Allen gets lobbied hard on specific issues, according to Potter, but contributors do not withdraw support if Allen does not vote in their interest on a single issue, she said. “Of course, if you never vote for them, they won’t support you anymore,” she said.

Potter said that Allen knows what he believes in and refuses to feel pressured, but asking friends for money still is “a grind. It changes friendships,” she said.

Baldacci, who was elected in 1994 and who has limited himself to four terms, will not run for re-election.

He has excess campaign money of $43,822 that he said he will “disburse in accordance with federal guidelines.” Since he’s not running for re-election, he said he plans to pay off his debt of $5,000 that he owes to a Washington, D.C.- based research firm.

“This is an expense for public opinion research,” Baldacci said, adding that “it will be settled this year.”

According to FEC regulations, excess campaign money can be used for a variety of purposes, such as contributions to charities and political organizations, but not for personal use.

Longley said complex FEC regulations and the expenses of media coverage in elections increase the public’s doubts about the integrity of politics and discourage good candidates from running. “If you don’t raise the money to pay for advertising, no one cares about your message,” he said.

He said he worried less about the issues he wanted to run on than having a good lawyer, accountant and political consultant. “I worried about raising enough to run and still comply” with the complicated election laws.