Posted on 05/08/2006 8:01:37 AM PDT by John Geyer
CARY - When state Senate leader Marc Basnight throws a fundraiser, the big political players show up.
On a recent evening, dozens of lobbyists representing nearly every major corporation or interest group in the state gathered under the crystal chandeliers of the grand ballroom at Prestonwood Country Club.
The N.C. State University boosters wore red jackets to underscore their school's support. Former governor and corporate lawyer Jim Hunt, recovering from surgery at his Wilson farm, left his sickbed to preside.
But perhaps the most striking figure was the host, Jim Goodnight, the Cary computer software magnate, a Republican who admires tax-cutting conservative Steve Forbes. On this night, Goodnight helped raise more than $200,000 for Basnight.
"My tendency on the national level is to vote Republican," Goodnight said when asked why he was supporting Basnight. "But in the state of North Carolina, the Democrats are more in my field of belief in terms of improving education."
Basnight and House Speaker Jim Black, also a Democrat, run powerful operations stoked by money from North Carolina's business community. Black and Basnight use the money to win votes in competitive districts and strengthen allegiance among Democratic legislators.
Those same legislators then vote every two years to keep Basnight and Black as their leaders.
Basnight is in his 14th year leading the 50-member Senate -- the longest-serving leader in its history. Black is in his fourth term as leader of the 120-member House.
Their years as leaders have helped Basnight and Black build political organizations that rival the major political parties. They recruit candidates, hire their own teams of political consultants, target races and raise millions in political funds. They have consolidated power in their chambers -- controlling the flow of legislation, the appointment of committees and the perks of office.
They use the budget to dole out favors, which helps engender loyalty and solidify their power.
In a recent budget, Black, Basnight and Richard Morgan, who was co-speaker of the House, placed nearly $14 million in reserve accounts and then gave the money to nonprofits and governmental agencies in favored lawmakers' districts.
Even critics marvel at the effectiveness of the legislative political organizations.
"North Carolina, and in particular the Senate, has as disciplined and as an effective a political machine as there is in the country," said Republican Sen. Robert Pittenger, a Charlotte businessman.
The rise of potent legislative organizations corresponds with the arrival of fierce two-party competition. In the 1994 national GOP landslide, Republicans won control of the House and came within one seat of winning the Senate.
"After '94, we figured we better join modern political thought," said Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat. "We had better get ourselves organized, or it was not going to be a very happy time for us."
Senate Democrats understood that political survival required a more professional and better-financed operation, Rand said. House Democrats learned the same lesson, Black said, and built an organization that allowed them to retake the House in 1998.
The key is raising money -- $124 million spent on legislative races over the past 14 years by both sides.
During the 2004 elections, Democrats spent $16.8 million to keep control of the legislature, compared to $9.6 million by Republicans, according to the UNC Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life.
A show of might
Democrats used their advantage to oust Sen. Robert Carpenter in the last election.
After serving 16 years in the Senate, Carpenter figured he was safe, tucked into the eight westernmost counties - a mountainous area of parks and waterfalls. The area leaned Republican, and Carpenter, a retired banker, had not had a close election in years.
TV was out of the question -- or so Carpenter thought. The nearest TV station was in Asheville, 70 miles east of his home in Franklin.
But in the final week of the campaign, the Basnight organization poured money into the district in a blitz of TV ads attacking Carpenter's votes in Raleigh.
Carpenter was defeated by Democrat John Snow, a retired judge.
Snow spent nearly $400,000 -- much of it from the Basnight organization. Carpenter spent $82,000.
"Don't let anybody ever tell you that the Democrats don't have money," Carpenter said. "They have money. They turn it loose and aim it in a direction and they usually get results."
When he got to Raleigh, Snow showed he was a Basnight team player on the major issues -- supporting the Democratic budget and, after lengthy negotiations, the state lottery.
Five Senate Democrats opposed the lottery -- an indication, says Basnight, that they are free to vote their conscience despite the caucus position.
But the independence goes only so far. No Democratic senators voted against the budget -- a move that would have branded them as mavericks.
The money that fuels the legislative parties comes from power companies, trial lawyers, labor unions, banks, textile companies, doctors, optometrists and the pharmaceutical industry. It comes from the video poker industry, insurance companies, telephone companies, road contractors, home builders, tobacco companies and hospitals and car dealers.
The leaders raise money
During the session that starts Tuesday, lawmakers are expected to consider tightening campaign finance laws.
But first, they're planning to squeeze more money from lobbyists and political action committees tonight.
Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, House Democrats and House Republicans are all throwing fundraisers. All events are in or close to downtown Raleigh, enabling lobbyists to hit all four if they choose. Senate Democrats are asking for up to $4,000 from those attending. The other three caucuses set $2,000 as their top price.
Black and Basnight are the point men for their caucus fundraising machines.
Individuals and political action committees are limited to giving candidates $4,000 for each election. But individuals and political action committees can give as much as they want to state political parties. The parties are allowed to make unlimited donations to individual candidates.
Black and Basnight collect money and give most of what they raise to the state party. The party then pours it into districts where Democrats are in close races.
In 1996, nearly $275,000 in donations Basnight collected went into a state Senate campaign fund. In 2004, Basnight gave more than $1.3 million to the state party, according to reports filed with the State Board of Elections.
Once Black and Basnight run their money through the state party, it can be mixed with money from other contributors and directed to specific districts. Though candidates must report how much they received from the party, the money's origin is not known. And candidates can take money from their parties in unlimited amounts.
Other states limit party contributions to campaigns, and a reform group is pushing for a $4,000-per-election limit here. Candidates often receive more money from the party than they raise from their potential constituents, said Bob Phillips, a founder of the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying Reform.
"There's more money spent and raised outside the district than in," Phillips said. "I don't think that's a healthy thing."
Black's fundraising follows a similar trajectory. In 2004, he raised more than $650,000 and gave it to the state party. He contributed thousands from his campaign account -- in $1,000, $2,000 and $4,000 shots -- to individual candidates.
The money Black raises comes from a variety of sources. That's better, he says, than having wealthy individuals use their money to defeat political rivals.
"You can't let the super-rich people of the state decide who's going to serve in the legislature and in Congress," he said.
Black mentioned Raleigh Republican Art Pope, a former legislator and retail company executive who paid for mailings critical of fellow Republicans in primaries, as a member of this super-rich club.
But Black gathers plenty of $4,000 checks from business executives, lawyers and doctors. In the two-year election cycle that ended in December 2004, Black raised $16,108 in contributions of $100 or less, and nearly $710,000 from people who gave more than $100.
When lawmakers are recruited and financed by the Democratic leadership, they often have close ties to Basnight and Black. Black, in particular, spends several nights a week on the road as the guest of honor at fundraisers.
"He's raised a lot of money; he's elected a lot of people," said Zeno Edwards, a Democratic former House member from the Beaufort County town of Washington. "A lot of people were indebted to him."
It is impossible to know how Black's money figures in to individual legislators' decisions. But Black has kept the House from voting on a video poker ban and pulled out close votes on the state budget and the lottery.
The lottery squeaked by the House in a 61-59 vote last year. Black won support from a few fence-sitting Democrats by promising stricter advertising limits than actually made it into the final law.
Starting at the top
Lobbyists certainly know who is in control at the legislature.
Meredith Norris, a lobbyist and former political aide to Black, joked in an e-mail message to officials with one of her clients, the Charlotte Regional Partnership, about the lack of power among rank-and-file lawmakers, including chairmen of legislative committees.
She wrote in a March 15, 2003, e-mail message that a state funding increase for the partnerships was in place, thanks to support from Black and Morgan.
But the partnership officials should still get people to contact lawmakers, she wrote, "so that the chairs/members will not think that anything is going over their heads [even though it is]; and they even think that the increase to the partnerships is their idea!"
(News researcher David Rayn
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