Woods
“The problem is that if you don’t contribute, then you know you’re going to be on the list of people who didn’t,” one says. “You gotta wonder if that list is going to be consulted when it comes time for the mayor to sign your bills.”
WSMV-Channel 4 political commentator Larry Brinton unfairly castigated Dean in one of his “Word on the Street” segments last week, stating incorrectly that the mayor was breaking a promise not to hold fundraisers to pay campaign debt. “Some politicians are long on campaign promises but maybe short on memory,” Brinton huffed. “Our energetic Mayor Karl Dean is one of them.”
Dean did pledge repeatedly during the campaign not to hold fundraisers to pay back debt, but he was clearly promising not to reimburse himself only for the family money that he put into the campaign.
Disclosures show Dean spent $1.2 million of his wife’s inherited wealth. Of that, he gave $325,000 in the form of a loan to the campaign. His volunteer campaign finance director, Ralph Mosley, says Dean isn’t paying back any of that money now. In fact, Dean couldn’t. He converted even the $325,000 to an outright campaign contribution after he was elected, meaning he can’t legally repay himself.
Instead, aides to Dean say the fundraiser is to pay back around $50,000 in bills that have come in since the election—mainly production costs for some of the campaign’s TV ads, but also money spent for fans, buttons and other expenses related to Dean’s inaugural ceremony.
Lobbyists say Brinton may have inaccurately portrayed the mayor’s campaign comments, but, they point out, Dean did run for mayor as an “ethical, pragmatic and progressive” leader and constantly disdained “the old-style politics” as represented by Dean’s erstwhile opponent Bob Clement.
“He’s splitting hairs about this,” one lobbyist says. “He left the impression that he wasn’t going to be fund-raising right after taking office, that he was above that.”
Mosley scoffs at the complaints as the usual lobbyist grumbling about political fundraisers. “We’re not shaking anybody down,” Mosley says. “We sent invitations asking people to come. If they come, fine. If they don’t, it’ll be OK. Nobody’s keeping a list.”
Mosley describes the event, to which at least two Metro Council members were invited, as “a celebration,” rather than a fundraiser. He contends Clement’s supporters have been clamoring to give money to Dean since the election and the mayor is merely bowing to their wishes by agreeing to accept their checks. “They’re saying, ‘Hey, he’s everybody’s mayor now. We’d like to give.’ So we’re having a celebration event to accommodate them.”
No hard feelings
At the state Capitol, lobbyists are griping about getting invitations to a different $1,000-a-ticket fundraiser, thrown this week by the House and Senate Republican caucuses to help pay for 2008 legislative campaigns. It only adds insult to injury, they say.
After the “Tennessee Waltz” scandal, in which lawmakers took bribes in a sting operation, the legislature held a special session and, in their infinite wisdom, decided to clean up things by strictly regulating lobbyists, even though they had nothing to do with the scandal.
The law requires lobbyists to fill out a lot of paperwork and attend ethics training classes. That was the bad news. The good news for lobbyists is that it also prohibits them from giving campaign contributions to legislators. Lobbyists are always complaining about shakedowns, so this seemed to let them off the hook.
But a loophole in the legislation permits contributions to party caucuses, which then funnel money to legislators. And so, as it turns out, lobbyists are still feeling the squeeze.
“Most of the lobbyists are still all pissed off about that law,” one lobbyist says. “But they’re beginning to grudgingly accept it because we don’t have to give contributions anymore. Now the caucus is coming after us. Everybody feels this is sort of out of bounds and outside the spirit of the law. So everybody’s bitching.”
“We’re just reaching out to people who want to get involved in the political process,” House GOP Caucus chairman Glen Casada, of College Grove, says innocently. As for the lobbyists, he adds, “You know, if they don’t like it, then they don’t need to help us. No hard feelings.”
That’s what they always say.
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