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The Parties in Perspective

This Republic was never predicated on the existence of political parties. As Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., has observed, neither the Articles of Confederation nor the Constitution provided for political parties. The United States began without party government. When George Washington gave his Farewell Address, he warned against “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.”

Of course, factions and eventually parties began to coalesce. Political scientists generally have delineated five separate party systems or eras. The heyday of the parties in American political life was roughly the mid-19th century. As the nation evolved, parties filled an institutional void, providing a way for groups and interests to win elections by forging coalitions, amid an increasingly diverse, growing electorate.

Political parties have been vessels for ideas, and as such they have contributed to the country’s political education and helped to develop national purpose and policies. They have offered a mechanism to mediate and modulate bitter disputes at the national level. They have helped government to organize, and they have provided an accountability mechanism — the “loyal opposition.” Parties have drawn ordinary citizens into the political system, recruited and trained political leaders, and, according to Schlesinger, offered avenues of “upward mobility to vigorous newcomers debarred by class or ethnic prejudice from more conventional avenues to status. As agencies of ‘Americanization,’ they received immigrants from abroad.”

The nature of the two-party system and its importance to everyday political life wasn’t lost on Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, “Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves, which grind on each other.”

The 20th century has seen the gradual decline of political parties. In fact, the consensus among political scientists is that, especially in recent decades, Americans tend to identify with individual candidates more than specific parties. Party loyalty, discipline, and identification have all been deteriorating. There is no shortage of explanations put forth by academicians and pundits to explain why the political parties have become increasingly irrelevant to the average American. Reformist measures from the Progressive Era, such as the creation of a civil service, dampened the potency of party patronage. Television and the high costs of media campaigns, increased candidate independence, and political action committees are but a few of the reasons frequently cited for the erosion of the parties.

Nationalization

What is ironic, however, is the trend toward “nationalization.” While partisan activities at the grassroots level appear to be on the wane, at the national level, the Republican and Democratic parties have reasserted themselves in recent decades. Their organizations, the size of their budgets and staffs, the high-tech computer and polling wizardry now being brought to political campaigning, the advent of direct-mail techniques to reach tens of millions of people, and the like all seem to suggest a new aggressiveness in party strategy.

Party organizations were created in the mid-19th century, principally to conduct national conventions. The Democratic National Committee was created in 1848. The new Republican Party established the Republican National Committee in 1856. Its main task was conducting presidential campaigns. Eventually, both parties developed campaign committees for Senate and House candidates as well. The national parties, however, didn’t actually hire professional staffs or set up permanent headquarters until after World War I. The RNC hired its first full-time paid chairman in 1936; the DNC followed suit in 1944. Party chairmen are elected to set terms by their national committees. By the 1950s, the RNC staff numbered at least 100, and it may double or triple in presidential election years. The DNC staff has always numbered less in the modern era. Staff turnover was high, and national committee finances were at times precarious.

As late as the mid-1960s, the two national party committees were viewed as somewhat pathetic “renters in [a series of] obscure buildings amid the splendid structures which house the lobbying activities of labor and industry.” This state of “homelessness” epitomized their lack of “permanence, stability, or institutional importance.”

By the 1960s, national party chairmen had far less patronage at their disposal. In terms of their former role in directing presidential campaigns, they had been supplanted by the campaign organizations of candidates.

Both parties, however, restricted the state delegate selection procedures for their conventions. The Democratic Party went further than the GOP in this regard, actually forming the McGovern-Fraser Commission to enact extensive delegate selection rules. But this evolution toward nationalization was more rapid within the Republican National Committee. Two of its chairmen, Ray Bliss (1965-1969) and Bill Brock (1977-1981) implemented sweeping organizational and financial changes. From extraordinary success in direct-mail fundraising, to training programs for candidates and campaign organizations, from state party development to policy development and an extensive communications system, the RNC became a truly national organization. In 1981 and 1982, the RNC raised $83 million from a donor base of 1.6 million people.

Michael Malbin noted in 1980 that, “As old-style party machines have waned, a new Republican organization has emerged — a multimillion dollar bureaucracy in Washington that employs 350 and plays an increasingly important role in all aspects of Republican campaigning and party policy.”

The role of party chairmen in this nationalization process is pivotal. Most chairmen in recent memory have been generally unknown to the public, they have not been national political leaders, and they are usually not ideologues pursuing a specific policy. They are frequently the choice of the presidential nominee at the convention. Their organizational talents must be formidable, managing a staff of hundreds of people, presiding over the national committee, preparing for the convention, raising money constantly to keep the national headquarters in operation, and performing as spokesmen for the party nationwide.

According to Samuel J. Eldersveld: “The national chairman is well paid and expected to be a full-time chairman. He occupies a prestigious position, often fought for, or at least desired, by many.”
Meanwhile, compared to the RNC, the DNC has evolved more slowly. The party was saddled with a $9.3 million debt from the 1968 campaigns of Hubert H. Humphrey and Robert F. Kennedy. All of the new technologies being exploited by the Republicans were thus too expensive for the Democrats. “We have lost 10 to 12 years,” DNC chairman John White said. “We are now where we should have been in 1969.”

Shortly after the Democrats lost the White House and the Senate in 1980, the DNC elected Charles T. Manatt as its chairman. He set about trying to duplicate the success that the RNC had achieved under Brock. The DNC soon developed a mailing list of more than 500,000 names, and Manatt created the Democratic Business Council, with more than 300 financially successful, Democratic business people suddenly positioned to “presumably influence party thinking.” To date, the amount of money the DNC raises, through direct mail and other means, is a mere fraction of the RNC receipts. Both party committees, however, have clearly become organizationally and financially “nationalized.” So while party identification and other indices are stunningly low by historical standards, the amount of money raised and the actual scope of centralized party operations from Washington is the highest in U.S. history.

Politics and Money

Throughout the 1980s, as the Democrats tried to play catch-up with the Republicans financially, there was considerable discussion about the ramifications. As Robert Kuttner wrote in The New Republic: “The Democratic Party’s poignant quest for philosophical moorings is complicated and compromised by its search for political money. It is one thing for the Democrats to abandon old themes because the majority of voters seem weary of government programs, labor unions, and needy people. It is another thing altogether to move right because that is where the money is ... the danger is that the Democrats’ natural identity as the party of the non-rich will be fatally undermined by the logic of campaign finance.”

While Manatt’s attempts to woo corporate support to the party were unusual by traditional Democratic standards, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Rep. Tony Coelho of California, was also setting a new fundraising course. He built up the DCCC’s receipts from $1.8 million in 1979-1980 to $15 million in 1985-1986. Many Democrats wondered if their party was selling its soul. Although Coelho later resigned his majority whip position following allegations of financial impropriety, in the summer of 1992 he was expressing interest in succeeding Ronald H. Brown as the DNC chairman.

The corrupting role of money in political parties isn’t exactly a new public issue. Commenting acidly that “‘bribery’ has existed in all ages, but it manifests itself in different forms,” author Louise Overacker wrote in Money in Elections in 1932, “As the cost of campaigns has risen, parties have been forced to expand their resources. In the United States, meeting little response from the rank and file of the electorate, they have been forced to rely to an increasing extent upon large contributions from prosperous business interests.”

“No party which is financially dependent upon the substantial business interests . . . would feel free to embark upon an economic program which met with their hostility,” Overacker observed. “Even a dog will not bite the hand that feeds it, and a political party will hardly sell out the person whose money it accepts.

“So far as the public at large is concerned the remedy is publicity, and more publicity. If a party desires to put itself under the control of the Standard Oil or the sugar trust or the power trust and does so openly, no principle of popular control is violated if it does so. There is, however, an objection to its being put in a position where it is virtually forced to sell out behind the back of the public. The real objection to the large gifts which corporations made to the Republican Party in 1904 was not that the money came from corporations but that the voters did not know who was paying the bills of the party.”

And so, in 1992, a full 60 years after Overacker’s book was published, there is public consternation over “soft money” quietly pouring into the two political parties. Campaign contributions are meticulously documented and analyzed. Most public discourse surrounds the donors and the beneficiary candidates. Little attention has been directed toward the party leaders, the national party machines, and their relationship to major Washington lobbyists and the large, multibillion-dollar interests they represent.

The urban political machines around the turn of the century were organized substantially for selfish motives — getting political power and material rewards for a select few political leaders. George Washington Plunkitt, the boss of New York City’s notorious Tammany Hall machine, said that he made his fortune in politics by buying property that he knew in advance would escalate in price because of a planned subway line. Plunkitt made a distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft; the latter was outright corruption. But honest graft, Plunkitt said, was simply a matter of “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.”

Plunkitt is long gone, but his credo lives on. As journalist Brooks Jackson and others have pointed out, quite a few people in Washington these days apparently see their opportunities, and they are taking them. It is all within the very wide confines of the law.

FINDINGS

The national party chairmen are not household names. Their relative anonymity to the general population, however, belies their power and access in Washington. Thus, understanding more about who these men are and where they came from is an essential part of any serious attempt to learn how the parties actually operate today.

A biographical survey of the 11 elected national party chairmen who have served since 1977 is revealing. Since 1977, no women have served as national party chairs, although both parties had women leaders earlier in the 1970s. Ronald H. Brown became the first black to serve as the chairman of either national political party when he was elected to head the Democratic National Committee in 1989. Generally, middle-aged white males are chosen to lead the national parties.

Since 1977, the average age of an elected chairman assuming office has been 47. Since 1977, the oldest man to become national party chairman was Clayton Yeutter, at age 60. The youngest man to be elected to the top post was Lee Atwater, at age 38.

Seven of the 11 elected chairmen, or 64 percent, hail from the Eastern Seaboard. Or, looked at slightly differently, four were born in the Northeast, four in the South or Southwest, two in the Midwest, and only one in the West (Utah). Since 1977, no one born or raised on the West Coast has served as the chairman of either party. Although Charles Manatt was a prominent attorney in Los Angeles before he became the chairman of the DNC, he was born in Chicago and grew up in Iowa.

All the chairmen elected since 1977 are college-educated, and six of the 11 are lawyers. The most degree-laden chairman to serve since 1977 has been Clayton Yeutter. He has a bachelor’s degree in agriculture, a law degree, and a doctorate in agricultural economics, all from the University of Nebraska.

Since 1977, the average tenure of the national party chairmen has been 2.9 years. The shortest stint to date is Richard N. Bond, the RNC’s current chairman, who has been in office only since February 1992. Two other chairmen, Kenneth Curtis and Clayton Yeutter, each served one year. Since 1977, easily the longest term as party chairman was Frank Fahrenkopf’s six years at the RNC, from 1983 to 1989.

The Challenges of the Times

This study is not intended to be a comprehensive examination of the evolution and development of the national political parties as the 20th century draws to a close. Obviously, most of our attention was spent analyzing the biographical backgrounds of the party chairmen, in the years since 1977.

Nonetheless, in that regard, several themes about the national party organizations emerged. First, while most Americans regard the political parties as aloof and irrelevant to their everyday concerns, and voter identification with the parties is quite low, the national party structures in Washington have grown and flourished in the past 15 years. Considerable attention has been spent by the national parties on building strong, resilient financial bases and on effectively utilizing technological advances in polling, computer databases, direct-mail solicitation, and so forth.

As a result, today we have the largest, multi-million dollar political machines in history. The parties have become substantially bureaucratized and top-heavy with expenditures for political consultants, election lawyers, and other highly educated specialists. The emphasis on building grassroots organizations has declined. These large machines seem somehow bloodless, workmanlike, and unemotional — process, not particular issues, has become paramount. The techniques and the technologies of winning seem to have supplanted ideas and ideologies.

The party chairmen have, of course, been at the center of these developments. Two of the most important functions of the party chairmen are raising money and organizing spectacular political conventions. But beyond those required roles, party chairmen have faced different kinds of challenges over the years.

The two party chairmen who have faced the most political and financial adversity and are generally regarded as having achieved the greatest success in their positions, for example, are Republican Bill Brock and Democrat Charles Manatt.

Brock assumed the chairmanship of the RNC in the wake of Watergate. Manatt became the chairman of the DNC in 1980 after the party lost the White House and the Senate in the Reagan landslide. Both men implemented very successful direct-mail programs, putting the names and addresses of huge numbers of potential party supporters into databases. Both men built up the financial resources of their respective parties. Both men went against the flow of their party traditions: Brock cultivated small contributors to the Republican Party, and Manatt developed the Democratic Business Council and other mechanisms to encourage business support of the DNC.

In the power vacuums left to them because of electoral debacle, Brock and Manatt really were the public spokesmen for their parties. Because their parties did not control the White House, their power was more absolute. Because no president had hand picked-them, they enjoyed exceptional independence and decision-making latitude.

Conversely, several party chairmen we interviewed — Kenneth Curtis, John White, Richard Richards, Frank Fahrenkopf — operated in the shadow of their party leader, the president. All four had good relationships with their respective presidents, Carter and Reagan. Curtis, however, felt victimized by the constant sniping and jockeying for position by Carter’s White House aides. White had to delicately steer the DNC through a bitter presidential primary feud between Carter and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Richards, though he had been the personal choice of Reagan, found himself accused of disloyalty and of not being conservative enough by right-wing Republicans. Fahrenkopf had to complement the White House and the 1984 Reagan-Bush reelection campaign organization, and he had the added burden of having a general chairman, Senator Paul Laxalt, imposed above him at the RNC.

Follow the Money

No matter who was chairman, no matter what the circumstances of the chairmanship, raising money was and remains a major preoccupation. Some chairmen, such as Fahrenkopf and Manatt, have prided themselves on their fund-raising prowess. Other chairmen, notably Atwater and Bond, have been regarded more as political strategists.

Like a large hulking shadow, this engrossment in all things monetary cannot be healthy for any organization or process. Both parties each have at least three major structures that raise millions of dollars every year for disbursement into the electoral process. In addition, both parties employ accountants and lawyers who have devised clever ways to circumvent the numerous loopholes of the Federal Election Campaign Act. Hence, both parties now happily rake in tens of millions of dollars of “soft money” from large corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals.

Much has been said and written about the corrosive, corrupting influence of money in political campaigns. Simply stated, the legislative and executive processes at the federal level cannot be responsive to ordinary, everyday people — taxpayers and consumers — when access to the corridors of power in Washington is bought and sold.

A member of the GOP’s “Presidential Roundtable” gets to attend meetings with the president and other cabinet members. Members of the Democratic Business Council and other large Democratic donor groups mingle with the mighty in Congress. Would John Q. Public from Podunk be afforded the same privileges? Of course not.

As long as the national party organizations continue their inordinate emphasis on money, they will continue to drift away from the American people.

The 1992 Political Party Conventions

Nowhere is the headlong rush for cash by the political parties more blatant than at their quadrennial conventions. And no one has chronicled these excesses more thoroughly than Sheila Kaplan, a senior reporter at Legal Times. In a series of 1992 articles she illustrated the remarkably unabashed extent of corporate connections to the political parties.

American Express Company, Time Warner, AT&T Company and the New York Telephone Company, a subsidiary of NYNEX Corporation, for example, each contributed more than $400,000 in cash and other support to help pay for this year’s Democratic National Convention in New York City. In addition to literally scores of corporate receptions at posh restaurants and hotels in Manhattan, at which lobbyists and business executives could meet and talk with the nation’s top Democratic officials, the most enterprising and colorful event was probably “Victory Train ‘92.”

Not only would $25,000 or more get someone three tickets on the special VIP train from Washington’s Union Station to New York City, but according to promotional literature quoted by Kaplan: “Once aboard, you’ll be able to roam the train and enjoy the ride with members of Congress, Democratic governors and mayors, and DNC contributors from across the country. Whether meeting new friends or enjoying the scenery through the glass wall of the observation car, the journey promises to be memorable.”

Three hours of uninterrupted access to a Capitol Hill lawmaker is indeed an alluring prospect for any lobbyist. No journalists were allowed on the special train chartered by the Democratic National Committee. Kaplan, however, was undaunted. She boarded the train and took copious notes, as well as numerous photographs of well-known lobbyists and elected officials laughing and enjoying the rolling party. Later, in New York, the uninvited Kaplan visited several corporate receptions, where the same kind of exclusive, high-priced “schmoozing” was occurring.

The Center talked with Joan Baggett, the DNC chief of staff, about Victory Train ‘92. For the past year, she said, the DNC tried “to get members for our finance council, labor council, business council, which are just regular contributors that contribute both federal and nonfederal dollars to the DNC. We tried to recruit members to that. As part of membership in those counsels, we said there would be activities at the convention that would essentially service our donors [emphasis added]. You know, do receptions for them. And we viewed the train sort of as one long reception, quite frankly. It’s a victory train to New York. We thought it’s a nice part to the package. So that’s who participated in it. We never allow reporters into our fundraising.”

When asked if such an event is “a lobbyist’s dream,” Baggett said: “Quite honestly, if somebody’s given $5,000, or somebody’s given $20,000, they can be on the train; I mean, along with all the [DNC] staff. So, there was no feel of exclusivity to it except to the extent they were donors . . . and there were members. But, people go to fundraising receptions all the time here. Do they have a captive audience? No. But frankly, if a member of Congress doesn’t want to talk to you if he’s on a train, I’ve never seen it deter them to be rude to you if they need to.

“The people who were on the train — quite honestly, I wasn’t on the train, but I roughly know who they were — don’t have any problem getting in to see members of Congress.”

The Republican National Convention in Houston had a similar matter-of-factness when it came to soliciting and servicing donors. Kaplan again documented the various corporate receptions and extravaganzas.

The Houston Host Committee raised more than $4 million from corporations to help support the many receptions and gala events. Dupont Conoco, Exxon Corporation, Shell Oil Company, Pennzoil Company, and Enron Corporation each contributed at least $250,000. AT&T, which had earlier helped finance Democratic convention events, contributed $450,000 in cash and in kind to the Republicans. Texaco, Inc., Occidental Chemical Corporation, and Tenneco Corporation all, according to Kaplan, contributed at least $100,000.

At the climactic moment of an elaborate reception hosted by Atlantic Richfield Corporation, a small “Victory Train” appeared and chugged noisily into the crowd. Waving happily to the exclusive group were none other than President George Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle.

Kaplan and Legal Times also reported other corporate celebrations, such as the separate parties thrown for Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole of Kansas by RJR Nabisco, Southern Pacific

Transportation Company, Coastal Corporation, and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. No industry had a higher profile than the major tobacco companies. Besides the RJR Nabisco affair for Dole, U.S. Tobacco reportedly flew former president Gerald R. Ford in for a breakfast. Philip Morris was a key sponsor of a major luncheon attended by Bush and Quayle, as well as a separate event at which Quayle and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp spoke. And, of course, the Houston convention manager was former Bush aide Craig Fuller, now a senior vice president of Philip Morris.

These tobacco companies, as well as BellSouth Corporation, Goldman, Sachs & Company, and Paine Webber Inc., sponsored events at both the Democratic and Republican conventions. Large corporations hedge their political bets.

Party Chairmen in a Mercenary Culture

This peculiar corporate milieu in which the party leadership functions on a daily basis is the same milieu into which party chairmen move when their terms expire. Former DNC chairman John C. White, for example, now represents Coastal Corporation, the Tobacco Institute, and Goldman Sachs. Former DNC Chairman Charles Manatt and his firm now represent, among many clients, the Tobacco Institute and Philip Morris. Former RNC chairman Bill Brock and his firm have represented, among others, American Express and Bell Atlantic. And when Richard N. Bond leaves his chairmanship of the RNC, he may return to the consulting firm he co-owns, Bond Donatelli, Inc., which counts among its many clients Enron Corporation.

What does all of this incestuousness between politics and commerce mean? For one thing, the parties and their elected chairmen seem to be far removed from the day-to-day economic realities that most Americans face. As part of this study, several themes emerged regarding the party chairmen and their relationships to corporate and other interests in Washington.

Party Chairmen Have Major Access to Washington’s Inner Circles

The leaders of America’s political parties are power players of the first order in Washington. RNC chairmen Richard Richards and Frank Fahrenkopf occasionally met with President Ronald Reagan and were in virtual daily contact with White House and other national officials. Lee Atwater, Clayton Yeutter, and Richard Bond have had similar, frequent access to President Bush, to the upper levels of the Bush administration, and to Republican leaders in Congress.

DNC chairmen Kenneth Curtis and John White told the Center that they met often with President Jimmy Carter and, in fact, regularly attended and participated in Carter’s cabinet meetings. DNC chairmen Charles Manatt and Paul Kirk had frequent contact with the most powerful Democratic leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives. Both Manatt and Kirk placed an emphasis on courting business leaders into the Democratic Party. Groups such as the Democratic Business Council gave major corporate donors access to Congress.

Perhaps there is no more dramatic example of the value of the exclusive access to power in Washington than the current DNC chairman, Ronald Brown.

Every Wednesday morning when Congress is in session, an important group of Democratic House members meets in the Capitol. Sometimes House Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington and Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri attend these weekly meetings. Almost always the Majority Whip, Representative David Bonior of Michigan, is in attendance, with 50 deputy whips — a designated Democratic lawmaker from each of the 50 states. The purpose of each week’s meeting is to discuss legislative strategy, to go over the upcoming agenda, bill by bill, and to review the vote counts being kept by each deputy whip.

Brown attends these meetings as DNC chairman. Were it not for his continuing business relationship with the Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow, which has approximately 1,500 active corporate clients, Brown’s attendance might not be so surprising. Brown has been receiving income from the firm since he became the DNC Chairman in 1989.

A Washington “consultant” who is also a loyal Democrat told the Center: “As a lobbyist, I would love to be sitting in on those weekly meetings. These are candid political conversations. ... If I know someone on [the] Ways and Means [Committee] just isn’t going to buy the Gephardt point of view on health care, boy, I’d love to get on the phone and tell my clients that. It’s like getting the newspaper a day ahead. It’s worth thousands of dollars. As a lobbyist, you must act as a predictor [about legislation and policy]. If you’re getting a $50,000 fee, with this kind of stuff, you might get $70,000.”

A veteran Democratic staff aide told the Center that anyone attending this weekly meeting is “right in the den; talk about entree.”

Since 1977, Half of the Party Chairmen Have Received Outside Income

Five of the 11 elected chairmen of the DNC and RNC since 1977 have received outside remuneration from law firms or corporations in addition to their party salaries, even though the charters of both parties require the position of chairman to be “full-time.”

DNC chairmen Charles Manatt and Paul Kirk were paid by their law firms while serving as party leaders. RNC chairman Frank Fahrenkopf was associated with three different law firms in Nevada and Washington during his party tenure. In addition to his salary as the RNC chairman, Clayton Yeutter received a consultant fee and received payments for serving on the boards of directors of three major corporations. Although he was never an elected chairman of the RNC, lobbyist Charles Black, in assisting his ailing friend Lee Atwater as the party’s chief spokesman continued to be paid by his firm, Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly. And during this period, Black reportedly never received a salary from the RNC.

The Washington Post reported that Atwater, as a “passive partner” at Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly during his chairmanship of the RNC, was listed in corporate documents as a partner but received no firm earnings.

Of the 11 elected party chairmen who have served since 1977, no one has faced more conflict-of-interest questions than Brown. No chairman appears to have had more outside business activities. Brown continues to receive income from Patton, Boggs & Blow, and while running the DNC he has solicited government business for both his law firm and the company he heads.

Brown declined to talk to the Center, despite more than two months of telephone calls and letters to his office. Brown was the only elected chairman of the past 15 years to decline the Center’s request for an interview.

No party chairman acknowledged ever lobbying on behalf of a client of his law firm. Indeed, each chairman interviewed expressly told the Center that he did not do any lobbying.

Aside from the controversial activities of Brown (see biography), the most publicized, single example of a party chairman “crossing the line” is Frank Fahrenkopf. In 1987, when Hogan and Hartson wanted to set up a high-level meeting on Toyota’s behalf with officials of the Commerce Department, the firm turned to Fahrenkopf, its highly placed “special counsel.” The RNC’s chairman not only arranged the meeting, but also attended it, along with Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, Commerce Undersecretary Bruce Smart, and Hogan and Hartson lawyers who were registered lobbyists for Toyota Motor Manufacturing USA. At the time, Fahrenkopf reportedly was receiving at least $100,000 a year from Hogan and Hartson.

In retrospect, Fahrenkopf told the Center, he would not have gone to the meeting — not because he thought his attendance was improper, but because he thought it had “the appearance of impropriety.”

Little Consensus Among Party Chairmen About Appropriate Conduct

Every elected party chairman since 1977 with whom the Center spoke had some sort of opinion about whether the top party official should supplement his salary with outside income from law firms and corporations. Generally, the old adage, “Where you stand depends on where you sit,” seemed to hold. The chairmen who had steadfastly resisted such lucrative opportunities while in office were against the practice of outside work. The chairmen who had kept their ties to law firms or collected fees for serving on corporate boards of directors saw nothing wrong with the practice.

There was a common sentiment that the ethical lines have become blurred. As Bond put it: “My philosophical take is that I think it’s up to the individual to decide. My personal view of this is that the line has moved much further than it was back in the days of the previous chairmen, and that for the year that I’m going to have this job it’s much easier to make the financial sacrifice than to leave myself, the party, or the president open to irresponsible charges or to inaccurate charges. So it’s easier just to forgo than it is to be pounded.”

Richard Richards, a former chairman of the RNC, said bluntly: “The guy who is running the party ought to be in the business of running the party and not in the business of making money. ... I don’t like to be a purist or a holier-than-thou kind of a thing, but I think the chairmanship of the party is a little different kind of a deal. It’s not something a guy ought to make a career out of. It’s a job that he ought to give some service to. This is a donation, so to speak, of some service, and it’s a difficult thing to do.”

Richards said that he declined lucrative offers from two law firms while he was the RNC chairman.

Bill Brock, a former chairman of the RNC, echoed Richards’s strong words: “I’m as close to a purist as you can get. I don’t begrudge people who may receive dividends made from an investment long ago. But I find it impossible not to act in nonprejudicial ways when on retainer to a law firm because it is inconceivable that the firm and the party’s interests coincide. I really have no right to comment on the other party’s rules, but [in] the Republican party, I think people should divorce themselves from external responsibilities. And what constitutes full-time to me is 60-70 hours a week, year in and year out. That doesn’t leave anytime for anything but your family. . . .

“I can’t imagine being the chairman of one of the major parties of the United States and not giving every ounce of energy. First, everything you’ve got has got to go on the line for that job. That is as important as being a senator, governor or a cabinet member. In some ways, it might be more. You are creating a system of empowerment for the American people. There just isn’t anything that is as important as that. I hate to think that maybe we need everything in writing, but maybe we need tighter rules. I guess we do need tighter rules that spell out these responsibilities. The basic problem is a legal [one]; in terms of the law end of it, we have a tendency to write rules for everyone but lawyers.”

Former RNC chairman Clayton Yeutter said: “I just don’t see how anybody, no matter how talented or bright they may be, [can be] a successful lawyer while also being a successful party chairman. Something has to give. . . . The individual cannot win in that position. ... At some point in time you just have to realize, is it really worth it? You have to worry about perceptions.” Yeutter, however, didn’t worry about accepting corporate board fees and consultant fees during his RNC tenure.

Former DNC chairman John White said: “The charter or bylaws say that the job is full-time. I accepted that literally. I guess it’s [a matter of] personal interpretation. I haven’t discussed it with anyone. I think it means what it says.”

But the notion of party chairmanship as a public position, with attendant public responsibilities, was implausible to former RNC chairman Frank Fahrenkopf, who told the Center: “Remember, you’re not working for the government, you’re not talking about Congress, you’re not talking about getting a federal salary. The Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee are private entities and they are run by private folks and they can set their own standards.”

There was generally common ground among the chairmen about doing favors for party contributors. Nearly all the chairmen said they had no problem with occasionally making a telephone call or setting up a meeting between a donor and government officials. Unacceptable behavior, though, would be attending such a meeting, as Fahrenkopf did in the Toyota matter.
“The bureaucracy is a very, very tough thing to get through,” Fahrenkopf said. “Providing the ability to get through, so long as that’s all it is ... it happens all the time. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

“I still in this town have a rule, and my rule is how will it look on the front page of The Washington Post tomorrow morning? I use the smell test. How will it smell? How will it look? . . . It’s a pretty good test.”

Finally, among the party chairmen elected since 1977, the professional options after leaving office seem to be completely unfettered and clear. There was no strong opinion against former chairmen becoming lobbyists. Indeed, the Center found that unless a chairman died or left Washington, he became a lobbyist.

Since 1977, Half the Party Chairman Have Been Registered Foreign Agents, Either Before or After Their Party Terms

Roughly half of America’s political party chairmen have worked for foreign companies or governments either before or after their terms of office.

The current chairmen of the DNC and the RNC, Ronald Brown and Richard Bond, both represented foreign clients before assuming their party posts. Bond and his firm represented the Panamanian government-in-exile of President Eric Arturo Delvalle, which paid the firm $10,000 a month for six months in 1989. Brown represented Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s Republic of Haiti from October 1982 until around February 1986, when Duvalier was forced to flee the country. Brown’s firm, Patton, Boggs & Blow, received $12,500 a month from the Duvalier government. Also in the early 1980s, although he was not registered as a foreign agent at the Justice Department, Brown represented the Home Recording Rights Coalition, which included numerous U.S. subsidiaries of Japanese electronics manufacturers.

Former DNC chairman Charles Manatt and his firm were registered as foreign agents for the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation, the Government of Jamaica, and the Republic of Cyprus, and in 1987 he began to represent NEC Corporation as well. In February 1989, Richard V. Allen, Tom Korologos, and Manatt founded Credit International Bank of Washington, whose principal shareholders were from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

Former RNC chairman Bill Brock and his firm have represented foreign clients that include Airbus Industries of North America, Bacardi Company, Ltd., Panama Trade and Development, Taiwan, and United Distillers South-East Asia. The firm also has been retained as a subcontractor by Burson-Marsteller to assist the Mexican Ministry of Commerce and Industrial Relations.

Former RNC chairman Richard Richards has represented companies in Hong Kong and Bangkok and has also represented the office of the Prime Minister of Thailand.

Former RNC chairman Frank Fahrenkopf has represented Globe Nuclear Services and Supply since November 21, 1991. Globe Nuclear Services and Supply buys and sells uranium concentrates that are necessary for the development of nuclear weapons. More than half of G.N.S.S. is owned by V/O Techsnabexport, an economic organization of the former Soviet Union; the remainder is owed by NUEXCO Exchange A.G., a Swiss corporation.

Although the late RNC chairman Lee Atwater was never personally registered as a foreign agent at the Justice Department, his firm, Black, Manafort and Stone, received $3.4 million in foreign lobbying fees in 1985, including more than $900,000 from Philippine interests with ties to the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Charles Black, a name partner of the firm who served as chief spokesman for the RNC during Atwater’s illness, has the most extensive Justice Department filings. In the mid-1980s, Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly landed an $800,000 contract to represent the Bahamian government of Lynden Pindling. The Bahamas had become a hotbed of illicit drug-smuggling to the United States, and Pindling and other top government officials were under a cloud of suspicion by federal law enforcement authorities.

In 1989, Black, Manafort signed a million-dollar-a-year contract with Zaire’s president, Sese Seko Mobutu. Black’s firm has also taken on other countries with well-documented histories of human rights abuses, such as Kenya, Nigeria, and UNITA, the Angolan rebel organization headed by Jonas Savimbi.

A World In Which There Seems To Be No Rules

Because the DNC and the RNC are private corporations, there are only a few disclosure requirements for top officials. Only some of their expenditures, for example, must be reported to the Federal Election Commission.

So far as the Center was able to tell, in conversations with attorneys for the DNC and the RNC, neither party has any ethical guidelines or conflict of interest standards for its senior officials.

Unlike 10,000 or so employees of the executive branch and judicial branches as well as members of Congress and top congressional employees, there is no requirement for the party chairmen to file annual financial disclosure reports.

Although both the DNC and the RNC told the Center that their chairmen do not accept honoraria for speeches or other appearances, there is no public place where any such information — even just travel expenses in cases where the honoraria may be donated to charities — is filed.

Most significant, the charters of both the DNC and the RNC require the chairmanship to be a full-time position. Nonetheless, half of the chairmen in the past fifteen years have received income from outside sources simultaneous to their party leadership service. These clauses in the party charters obviously are loosely interpreted and administered.

RECOMMENDATIONS

With extremely limited disclosure requirements, and charters that are all but ignored, it is indulging the public patience and trust for party chairmen to issue glib assurances that they do no lobbying.
The Center does not advocate specific legislation or public policies. At the same time, two reforms in the existing system would seem reasonable and necessary.

The disconcerting image of party officials conducting party business and private business at the same time only serves to further erode the public’s confidence and trust in government. The fact is, the party chairmen do have exceptional access and influence in Washington. With their public responsibilities to millions of contributors, as well as to American taxpayers in general, the time may have come for additional public accountability for the nation’s major political parties.

The DNC and RNC charters should further define and tighten the language around the respective clauses that deal with the issue of “full-time” chairmen. Unmistakably clear rules should be established to prohibit any party chairman from receiving income from a law firm, a consulting firm, a corporation, or any other outside entity during his term in office. If a prospective chairman can’t get by on an $140,000 or $150,000 annual salary, the party can do either of two things: find another chairman, or, remarkable as it sounds, boost the salary to preclude any possible rationale or excuse to moonlight as a consultant, lawyer, or lobbyist.

Moreover, the general counsels of the DNC and RNC, the Federal Election Commission, and the Republican and Democratic National Committees, should monitor and enforce any improved statute in the charter governing the extracurricular activities and potential for abuse of the party chairmen.

Personal disclosure requirements for the party chairmen would begin to clear the air on these issues. To date, we don’t really know how much chairmen are paid, or how much they are paid by their law firms while they serve as chairmen. Additional disclosure is entirely reasonable and, frankly, necessary.

Finally, journalists and academicians should perhaps begin to look at political parties in a somewhat more analytical light, beyond the normal convention hoopla and election tallies. The party leadership positions — chairman, finance chairman, deputy chairman, and so on — are tightly knit into the rest of Washington’s unique, mercenary fabric. The public is entitled to more information about the role of party leaders in the day-to-day, decision-making mechanics of Washington.