Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 1, 1993 TAG: 9306010031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KENT JENKINS JR. and JOHN F. HARRIS THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The fund-raising event is better known as the party's state convention, and more than 14,000 people have signed up to participate.
Virginia GOP officials brag that the convention will be the largest of its kind ever held in the United States. What they do not volunteer is that this brand of democracy will bring in a huge profit.
In fact, many suspect that profit is an important reason the party isn't letting Virginia voters go to the polls in a primary election to pick the Republican nominee for governor, which is the alternative.
To have a say in picking the party's candidates in three statewide contested races - governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general - you must be a delegate to the Republican convention in Richmond on Saturday. And to do that, you must pay the state party a registration fee of $35. In most places, you also have to pay the city or county GOP a fee of as much as $15.
It's not a lot of money, until it's multiplied by 14,000 delegates. The state party stands to take in at least $490,000. Local groups will collect tens of thousands of dollars more.
Republican officials acknowledge the primary purpose of the fees is to raise money and that this year they have been spectacularly successful. They say the practice has been going on for decades and is widely accepted among party regulars.
But political activists and analysts outside the GOP say that, at a time of widespread public cynicism about politics, the practice of charging money to vote raises a host of questions. The fee reinforces the stereotype of Republicans as well-to-do and elitist, they say, and it revives memories of the segregationist-era poll tax, which Virginia and many other Southern states imposed to discourage blacks from voting.
"There is no doubt that the process the Republican Party of Virginia uses harkens back to all the discriminatory practices that were outlawed by the Voting Rights Act," said Kent Willis, Virginia director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "What they do is legal. It's a question of the kind of image you want to project."
"I question whether you will have a diverse audience if you are charging $50 to get in," said Mark J. Rozelle, a political scientist at Mary Washington College. "That's not small change to a lot of people. It reeks of elitism."
Virginia GOP Chairman Patrick McSweeny argues that no process that brings together 14,000 participants can be excluding very many people. The convention "makes us money, no question," he said. "But we get our money from the little guys. We don't shake down the big people.
"If the fee were excessive, it would be wrong. But I think it's entirely appropriate. People who pay it have invested in the party. And that's party-building."
Although Republican officials will not release detailed information about the state party's finances, they acknowledge that this year's convention is generating the most money ever. Along with the registration fees, the party will make money from other convention events, including a banquet and a breakfast. Republican sources said the party should clear $400,000 after expenses.
GOP sources say that in recent years the state party's annual operating budget has averaged about $1 million, meaning that the convention revenue could provide about 40 percent of all the money needed to run the party this year.
Several senior Republicans say privately that financial considerations were at least part of the reason the GOP decided not to choose its statewide candidates in a primary election. Although a primary attracts far more public attention and participants, sources say the absence of convention revenue in two recent years caused money problems for the party.
In 1989, Republicans chose their candidate for governor in a contentious three-way primary that produced sharp invective and, ultimately, a losing candidate. The next year, Republican Sen. John Warner had no Democratic opposition and decided that no GOP nominating convention was necessary.
Although a convention would have been little more than a formality for nominating Warner, sources say state GOP officials had made budget plans that counted on a convention raising $100,000 or more for the party, money the party desperately needed to combat severe financial problems.
Late in 1989, state Republican leaders discovered that a bookkeeper had failed repeatedly to make tax-withholding payments to the Internal Revenue Service, leaving the party about $175,000 in debt. Staff salaries were cut, and the party took out a six-figure loan.
Some senior Republicans pressed Warner to make a sizable contribution to the party to help make up convention losses, but Warner declined.
State GOP conventions have become such dependable sources of cash that some local party organizations have begun to imitate the idea. In Fairfax County this year, the Republican Party staged a county convention that drew 3,300 delegates who paid $15 apiece to attend. The event raised about $50,000 for the county party.
"This has been a bonanza for us," said Fairfax GOP Chairman Patrick Mullins. "You pay to have the privilege to go down to Richmond to participate in the democratic process."
Virginia Democrats also charge fees to people who attend the party's state conventions, but the fees are lower and are not designed to make money for the party. A spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party said that fees run from $15 to $25 a person and that the fee is waived for anyone who asks. The Republicans require that all delegates pay fees regardless of their financial situations.
Some GOP candidates are paying the fees for delegates who support them, which has raised the issue of vote-buying. A spokesman for gubernatorial candidate Earle Williams said last week that his campaign has paid fees for more than 200 delegates. A spokesman for one of Williams's rivals, George Allen, said his campaign has arranged for some delegates' fees to be paid by other delegates.
"To be fair, few people can be outright bought for that small amount of money," Rozelle said. "But you, in effect, have candidates paying people to do their bidding."
McSweeny acknowledges that the party walks "a fine line" in this area, but says GOP officials make sure that candidates do not use money to influence votes. "I would worry about [candidates paying fees] if it were linked in a way that biases somebody's vote," McSweeny said. "But I've never seen that happen."
Some Republicans argue that the entire convention process should be scrapped, saying that much of the public is put off by it. "There's something intimidating about a convention," with its complex rules and procedures, said Marshall Coleman, the party's 1989 gubernatorial nominee. "It disturbs me that highly informed, intelligent people ask, `How does this thing work?'
"People really feel they can affect the process in a primary. You can organize a neighborhood, you can put up yard signs, you can volunteer."
Supporters of conventions counter that Coleman and two rivals spent more than $10 million during the 1989 primary, much of it on negative television ads. This year, fewer voters have been exposed to such acid rhetoric, and the gubernatorial candidates have spent less than one-third as much money.
The state party, of course, will come out of the nominating process with its coffers bulging. GOP sources say that in the 1985 gubernatorial race, convention revenue helped to pay for a six-figure, statewide telephone bank that was used throughout the general election campaign. Republicans decline to say how money generated by this year's convention might be used.
"I would put our process up against anybody's," McSweeny said. "We don't hide the fact that we are making money at the convention. But we are also building interest in our party. And most Republicans think that's a pretty good combination."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB