Behind the scenes at the DNC
Despite new lobbying laws, conventions are still nothing but a three-ring circus.
By Ben Whitford
Photo by Eric Mack
This week’s Democratic convention is a carefully choreographed media event: Everything from the balloons and banners to the speeches and celebrity endorsements have been carefully calibrated to play well on an endless loop on cable news. What you won’t see on TV, though, are the behind-the-scenes shenanigans: glitzy lobbyist-funded parties that give industry groups a chance to buy and bank goodwill for the four years ahead.
According to a new report (pdf) by Public Citizen, this year’s party conventions will see lobbyists and corporate donors blow $112 million staging more than 400 parties for lawmakers and their aides. Conveniently, the exact accounts won’t be available until two months after the conventions, right around polling day; still, early reports indicate that energy and extractive-industry groups will be spending big bucks to buy influence over the next two weeks.
A sampler: Utility provider and nuclear-plant operator Xcel Energy will be “sponsoring” the Republican and Democratic conventions to the tune of $1 million apiece; oil giant ConocoPhillips will spend $375,000 to woo Democrats in Denver; Koch Industries, a sprawling conglomerate with petroleum, energy, and chemical interests, will spend $250,000 to win over Republicans in St Paul.
New lobbying laws were supposed to have put an end to this sort of thing; unfortunately, the rules are riddled with loopholes. Lobbyists are barred from hosting parties in honor of a single lawmaker, so instead they’re doubling up and throwing bashes for two or more members of Congress at a time. Some hosts ask for voluntary contributions before wheeling out the DJs in order to get around rules prohibiting free entertainment; others are ducking rules barring anything but finger food with new feats of culinary creativity, sticking toothpicks in hamburgers to transform them into “sliders” or serving colossal canapes on specially designed super-sized spoons.
Other groups are sidestepping ethics rules altogether. Instead of hosting parties, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has spent $2 million buying up advertising space all over Denver to promote the virtues of “clean coal”. The group, loathed by many environmentalists, is also flooding the area around the convention center with “experiential advertising," putting people on street corners to buttonhole convention attendees and hand out maps of Denver along with literature touting the benefits of coal.
The bottom line is that the only people who can really clean up the conventions are the parties themselves. Unfortunately, there’s little sign of that happening. Until a media uproar shamed them into changing tack, the GOP was happily auctioning off rounds of golf with party leaders for $2.5 million a pop. Barack Obama, meanwhile, says he was nominated too late to clean up this year’s convention, although he’s promised to do better if he finds himself running for reelection four years from now.
This year, though, greens simply don’t have the greenbacks to compete with the Olympic-class schmoozing on display at the conventions. And inevitably, once lawmakers head back to Washington, they’ll be far more likely to give their time and attention to those generous, fun-to-know industrial lobbyists than to the broke but well-meaning environmental campaigners hanging around outside the convention hall.
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