WASHINGTON, June 12: For lawmakers in Washington, the daily chase for money can begin with a breakfast fundraiser in the side room of a Washington restaurant.
At noon, there might be a 500 dollars-per-plate lunch with lobbyists in a Capitol Hill town house. The day might wrap up in an arena sky box in downtown Washington, watching a basketball game with donors.
In between, there is “call time” – up to four or five hours a day for lawmakers in tough re-election campaigns – in telemarketing-style cubicles a few hundred yards from the Capitol. The call centers, set up by the Democratic and Republican parties, allow lawmakers to chase the checks that fuel campaigns without violating rules that ban fundraising from their offices.
For many lawmakers, the daily routine in Washington involves fundraising as much as legislating. The culture of nonstop political campaigning shapes the rhythms of daily life in Congress, as well as the landscape around the Capitol.
It also means that lawmakers often spend more time listening to the concerns of the wealthy than anyone else.
“People who are being cold-called by members of Congress are people who have a lot of money to give,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group. “Their concerns are not, ‘Can I find a job,’ their concerns are, ‘How much am I going to be taxed?'”
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Few lawmakers are willing to talk about the amount of time they devote to raising money, largely out of concern they might alienate voters or donors.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut is a rare exception. He’s won four House and Senate elections since 2006, but he isn’t happy with the amount of time he has had to devote to fundraising.
“It’s important for us to expose the ugliness of political fundraising, because people are not going to care about this issue if we continue to pretend like it isn’t a big part of our lives,” Murphy told.
The drive to raise money never lets up in the House of Representatives, where lawmakers face re-election every two years. House incumbents raised a record average of 1.7 million dollars in the 2012 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That is an average of 2,400 dollars per day in the two-year election cycle.
The pressure is less constant in the Senate, where lawmakers stand for re-election every six years. But the stakes are higher because they represent entire states. Senate incumbents who were up for re-election last year raised an average of 10.3 million dollars, or more than 4,700 dollars per day over six years.
For some, the cramped call centers are a symbol of the problem.
“It smells like a gymnasium locker room after a few hours. It’s awful, it’s like a sweatshop,” said former Representative Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat who said the persistent need to raise money was one of the reasons he resigned from Congress last year.
HIGH-END FUNDRAISING
Other fundraising methods can be more pleasant.
On the day Murphy was interviewed, South Dakota Senator John Thune, a Republican, hosted a breakfast at Bistro Bis, a nearby French restaurant. The price of admission was 1,000 dollars per person.
Around the corner, Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii held a 500 dollars-per-person breakfast fundraiser at Johnny’s Half Shell, a popular seafood restaurant and lobbying den on Capitol Hill.
(AGENCIES)
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