Democrats are ethically challenged

Ransom: Dems sold top House positions for $100,000; $200,000 for legislation

BY PAUL BEDARD | SEPTEMBER 22, 2014 

House Democrats, panicked after Newt Gingrich and the GOP shocked Washington by winning the House in 1994, became so obsessed with raising money to take back the chamber they even sold off top leadership jobs, according to a longtime Democratic fundraiser.

In an explosive book out next month, Lindsay Mark Lewis said that former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt’s team set a price of $100,000 to be the top Democrat on every House committee, $100,000 on a trade deal and $200,000 for a tax proposal to be considered by the House Ways and Means Committee.

They also demanded that members raise money 12 hours a week and collect $1.5 million per election cycle or be put on a “deadbeat list.”

“For the first time in history, House Democrats had made money the central measuring stick of success,” wrote Lewis in Political Mercenaries. An advance copy, co-written by journalist Jim Arkedis, was provided to the Washington Examiner.

Now the executive director of the Clinton-aligned Progressive Policy Institute, Lewis said Democrats tapped House members because Bill Clinton, readying for re-election in 1996, was sucking up available donations, leaving little for House races.

It worked. By 1996, the average House Democrat — including challengers — raised $620,000, but the price was so high, he added, that only fat cats would jump in to run. “It was a new type of Democrat,” wrote Lewis, a former Gephardt fundraiser and finance director for the Democratic National Committee.

The main sermon of the book is that politicians spend way too much time raising money and not governing. Here's how they present the conclusion on Amazon:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Lewis and co-author Jim Arkedis conclude that the real damage isn’t the raw amount of money spent on elections, but rather the amount of time politicians spend raising it. It’s time they should spend governing. And Lewis lays much of that blame at the feet of the Democratic Party, who sold out—not to corporate or lobbying interests, but to a very few liberal wealthy elites.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.