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Published on Thursday, March 30, 2000 in the
Washington Post
GOP Attorneys Generals Solicit
Large Contributions From
Corporations That Are
Embroiled In Lawsuits
by George Lardner Jr. and Susan Schmidt
Republican state attorneys general are soliciting
large
contributions from corporations that are embroiled
in--or are
seeking to avert--lawsuits by states.
The Republican Attorneys General Association expects
to collect
$550,000--in chunks of $5,000 and up--from various
companies
gathered in Austin for a two-day session beginning
today. The
meeting features a "political briefing" Friday morning
by Karl Rove,
Texas Gov. George W. Bush's chief political
strategist.
Membership in RAGA costs anywhere from $5,000 to
$25,000,
with increasing levels of access to the attorneys
general
depending on the donation. Microsoft Corp., which is
being sued
by 19 states that have joined a Justice Department
antitrust
lawsuit, contributed $10,000 last year, according to
company
spokesman Rick Miller. Telecommunications giant SBC
Communications Inc., whose acquisition of Ameritech
Corp. was
facing review by state officials, says it contributed
$35,000.
Officials of the Republican National Committee said
RAGA raised
$100,000 last year, but they declined to identify
where the money
came from. The donations are used for state attorney
general
races.
However, there is no way of knowing which companies
have
contributed to RAGA or how much. Contributions
solicited by the
group go into the general "soft money" account of the
RNC and
are reported in the RNC's monthly filings with the
Federal Election
Commission. "We disclose every cent we raise," said
RNC
spokesman Mike Collins.
Insurance company Aetna gave $10,000 to the RNC's soft
money
account last July 26, around the time of RAGA's first
fund-raising
drive, but Collins declined to say whether that was
for a RAGA
membership. Aetna U.S. Healthcare was one of six
managed-care
organizations accused of HMO fraud by Texas Attorney
General
Dan Morales, a Democrat, in 1998 just before he left
office. The
litigation has been moving slowly under Morales's
Republican
successor, John Cornyn, host of this week's RAGA
conference.
Critics of the group say they are troubled by such
spotty disclosure
and by the use of state law enforcement officials as
fund-raisers
for the GOP. Several present and past attorneys
general,
Republican and Democrat, complain that RAGA puts
attorneys
general in the position of asking for money from
potential or even
actual defendants.
"I think this erodes every attorney general," said
former
Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger, a
Democrat
who is now president of Common Cause. "If you don't
prosecute a
case against someone when people think you should, or
defend
someone when people think you shouldn't, that's your
job. But
once somebody thinks one of us is doing that for
political reasons,
it affects us all."
RAGA's leaders reject charges that the group's
solicitations
present a conflict of interest.
"I am proud to support [RAGA], and it does not create
a conflict of
interest," said Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor,
who founded
the group last year. Cornyn said it was "outrageous"
to suggest he
would be influenced by contributions to RAGA. "As
attorney
general, I will always take action against those who
have broken
the law," he said in a statement. "No exceptions. No
excuses."
In most states, the job of attorney general is an
elected, partisan
position, and those seeking the post raise money just
as other
politicians do. But while the tab for most attorney
general races is
fairly small, RAGA represents an effort--permitted
under federal
election law--to pump far larger sums into targeted
races.
So far, RAGA has enlisted seven of the 15 Republican
attorneys
general in the nation, and some have told colleagues
they joined
reluctantly, urged by GOP officials in their states.
Besides Pryor
and Cornyn, attorneys general in Delaware, Nebraska,
South
Carolina, Virginia and Wyoming have signed up.
Asked why he did not join the group, Pennsylvania
Attorney
General Mike Fisher said, "I'm a Republican and I try
to keep
politics out of my business as attorney general."
"We're a family, and families can disagree," Grant
Woods, former
Republican attorney general of Arizona, told the
National
Association of Attorneys General during a discussion
about RAGA
at its spring meeting here last week. "But don't do
this."
Harshbarger pointed out that other Democratic
attorneys general
had in the past resisted efforts by the Democratic
National
Committee to organize for fund-raising purposes.
"This is absolutely an effort by people with special
interests to stop
attorneys general from pursuing their traditional role
as protectors
of the public interest, not special interests,"
Harshbarger said.
One of RAGA's founding members and its first chairman,
South
Carolina Attorney General Charles Condon, had joined
the
Microsoft lawsuit but dropped out in December 1998,
citing
changes in the industry. A few months earlier,
Microsoft had given
$20,000 to the South Carolina GOP, one of the largest
gifts in the
state party's history.
RAGA is an outgrowth of the increased activism of
states and their
attorneys general in recent years. A number of states
have banded
together in lawsuits against such companies as
cigarette makers
and car manufacturers. The group is in part a backlash
against
activist attorneys general who have teamed up against
big
business on issues from false advertising by carmakers
to
price-fixing in the women's shoe industry.
RAGA was conceived by Alabama's Pryor, who said he was
alarmed by the dwindling number of Republican
attorneys general
and the public-private lawyer alliance in the tobacco
litigation. He
said he began discussions with colleagues, including
Condon and
Cornyn, about how to elect "conservative,
crime-fighting attorneys
general in other states."
They joined forces with the RNC, and RNC Chairman Jim
Nicholson announced RAGA's formation in June 1999.
Nicholson
called it "a tremendous opportunity" for the GOP
because a large
number of attorney general seats up for election in
1999 and 2000
were held by Democrats. The group later said it would
not go after
incumbent Democrats but would help Republicans seeking
reelection or running for open seats.
The attorneys general who formed the new organization
and
supporters in the business community say what alarms
them most
is the prospect of more alliances between attorneys
general and
plaintiff's lawyers that can cost billions, including
huge contingency
fees such as those awarded to the trial lawyers in the
tobacco
litigation.
James Wootton, executive director of the U.S. Chamber
of
Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform, said the $246
billion
tobacco settlement has opened the door to similar
arrangements
between private lawyers and state officials
considering claims
against gunmakers and manufacturers of lead-based
paint.
RAGA's Austin meeting is closed to the public, but an
invitation
described it as an opportunity for business executives
to talk with
attorneys general about how to preserve "conservative
principles
in the political marketplace."
"I encourage you to round up your clients and come see
what
RAGA is all about," Cornyn wrote in a January letter
to Austin
lawyer Hector DeLeon.
A panel on high technology and telecommunications
features
industry representatives and attorneys general
discussing "free
enterprise and the proper balance of government
regulation" and
"timely issues such as antitrust, interstate commerce,
Internet
gambling . . ."
A "consumer protection" panel discussion is titled
"The Business
Community & Attorneys General: Working Together to
Protect
Communities & Consumers."
Conference participants had been scheduled to attend a
welcoming reception at the governor's mansion, but the
site was
changed last week after media inquiries. Mansion
staffers said the
RAGA reservation was canceled the same day Bush
spokesman
Ari Fleischer was asked about it. RAGA Executive
Director Ben
DePuy said the shift was made because "with 175 people
coming,
we needed a larger venue." He estimated that 70
percent of the
participants would be RAGA members and said that
others could
attend for a $275 registration fee.
The conference will wind up with a choice of golf,
tennis, spa
relaxation or an afternoon of skeet and trap shooting
sponsored by
the National Rifle Association.
Staff writer James V. Grimaldi, researcher Lynn Davis
and
database editor Sarah Cohen contributed to this
report.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
###
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