New West Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
The Western Governor’s Association meeting in Whitefish, Mont., ended Tuesday, with the near half-milllion dollar cost of the conference mostly paid for by sponsors that include corporations –British Petroleum among them — as well as trade associations and other special interests.
The event included a “Sunset Train Ride” paid for by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway but which was “not an official WGA sponsored event,” the agenda notes in small type. WGA chair Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the event’s communications director, Karen Dieke, spun the concept that taxpayers didn’t have to pay for the three-day meeting because of the generosity of sponsors.
But high levels of mistrust of politicians – and corporations like BP – shows we are not fooled by that sort of thing anymore.
It’s a simple idea. Little League parents know that if Murphy’s Hardware sponsors a team, the kids’ caps and shirts are going to display the Murphy’s Hardware logo. In the big leagues, corporate sponsors might pay for a star athlete to wear their clothes or use their products during TV interviews. The idea, of course, is to create a good impression for the brand by linking it to the famous athlete in the public’s mind. (Until the famous athlete’s wife tries to beat him senseless with a golf club, that is.)
Those kinds of sponsorships are meant to make money, of course; hardly worth a second thought.
Campaign financing, not paying for confabs, is the main issue when the discussion is about money’s influence in politics. $3.5 billion was spent by lobbyists in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and that’s a near-insurmountable arsenal.
But there are smaller, more incremental ways that corporate money finds its way into political situations where where access to politicians and influential leaders makes currying favor possible. The WGA conference is one example.
The 94 sponsors include some active in business in Montana, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe, ConocoPhillips, Corrections Corp. of America, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, MDU Resources Inc., NorthWestern Energy, Qwest Communications and Arch Coal, which plans to mine Otter Creek coal tract coal in southeastern Montana.
Many are national corporations such as BP America, Hewlett-Packard Co., Kraft Foods, Microsoft, Merck & Co., PepsiCo., Shell and US Airways.
Other sponsors include the American Wind Energy Association, Energy Foundation and Northwest Public Power Association.
In exchange for their sponsorships, representatives of corporations and other groups are invited to attend a private reception with the governors Sunday night.
The WGA’s Dieke told Johnson that she wasn’t “at liberty” to disclose which sponsors paid how much or for what, saying their contributions are defined as “different levels” of sponsorship.
In the language of public relations, “not at liberty” means “I’ve been told not to tell.”
It’s common for both the givers and takers of money to downplay, or even deny, that it buys influence. But with the huge financial stakes at play for corporations that depend on the outcome of legislation, denial falls flat.
There’s no indication, yet, that anything untoward happened in Whitefish among sponsors, speakers and governors. But there are obvious interested parties among the sponsors. Two examples:
1. Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, spoke about the future of energy generation in the west. WGA sponsors included Northwest Public Power Association, a business trade group for energy providers; the American Wind Energy Association, the same; and the Energy Foundation, a nonprofit group which says its mission is “to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy — new technologies that are essential components of a clean energy future.”
2. A panel on conservation included the president of REI, national park superintendents and a professor of geology. The discussion was about “integrated efforts to improve the conservation of water, wildlife and forest resources” among western states. Sponsors of the meeting included Monsanto, a chemical company long accused of anti-environment products and practices.
The point here is that unprincipled use of money in politics isn’t just about mammoth donors like ExxonMobile or PepsiCo, and it isn’t just about campaigns, elections and scandals involving lobbyists.
The insidious practices that both donors and recipients have used to get voters to accept pretense and hypocrisy until it seems normal – like the WGA’s horsemanure about taxpayers not having to pay for the three-day meeting because of the generosity of sponsors – are also dangerous. Millions of dollars of corporate money spent to influence public perception fly under the radar when used in the subtle ways of “government relations” departments.
Look into how most political money is spent at FollowTheMoney, OpenSecrets, and the Sunlight Foundation.
jill- the sad thing is… as the recession tightens and budgets of government shrink, we can expect our politicians to cuddle up even more with their corporate benefactors.
the perpetual motion machine of cash equals representation goes on and on.
You can try to find sponsors from the recent bankruptcy filings in the courthouse. “We need sponsors. Only unsuccessful businesses need apply.”
Better we not have a Western Governors Conference? Do you think it better that the Governors spend taxpayer money, and have the conference in Hong Kong or Singapore? Or Cancun, Cabo, or somewhere in the Tropical Islands of the world? Because they will if we let them.
The money is not influence buying, but more like a shakedown, and to make shakedowns work, you do have to give something in return or you end up with a gang fight of magnitude. The Governors shake down business for the dough, and business does it because they are, after all, in front of Administrative rule and regulation developers every day, all of whom are appointed by the Governors. Is it money buying politicians, or politicians shaking down business? There is a difference, you know. All depends upon your vantage point.
Bearbait,
If these meetings were for anything remotely related to the needs of average citizens and small businesses, a video conference would suffice. Aren’t you forgetting the subsidies, below-market government loans, tax loopholes, cosmetic regulations, and other taxpayer-funded advantages bestowed upon big business? Big business wrote most of what you call regulation to tilt the playing field in their favor. Small businesses, where a majority of jobs are actually created, operate in regulated markets designed by big business to hold and expand market share and eliminate competition. Most small and micro businesses can’t affort this pay to play system.
Jill,
I’m glad you mentioned the Energy Foundation. That’s the pet operating foundation of Hewlett and “partners,” primarily as an AGW front group. Lots and lots of money there. Lots more at the Climateworks Foundation, which gets passthrough money from Energy as well.
All nonprofit, all charitable, all lobbying, all for climate change. Never mind that the alternative energy sponsors are looking for “favorable policies that skew the economics so their projects pencil out in their favor.
Anyway, glad that someone actually mentioned the stealthy Energy.
TJ Starker graduated in the first class of the Oregon State School of Forestry, went on to get a Masters at Yale School of Forestry, became the Dean of the Oregon State College School of Forestry, and lived well into his 90s, a very successful timberland owner, logger of his trees, grower of his trees, and a solid and contributing citizen for his whole life. That is his name on the 1031 Starker Exchange where you can move capital without being taxed twice. The Starker Lectures Series each year at Oregon State U. is a major event with a world wide following. And TJ Starker was a letter to editor writer on occasion.
The one he wrote, long, long ago, that I still remember was in response to a Corvallis G-T Lee newspaper story about a young guy with a team of horses who was horse logging a thinning in young timber. The reported waxed poetic about man and his horse, and lauded the light hand on the land. Starker wrote in his letter to the editor that horses can do the job but we try to better support our world population by becoming more efficient and productive. A horse logger, he wrote, was most often an earnest, hard working young man whose every day labor was devoted to earning enough money to support himself and the horse, and save enough to buy a caterpillar tractor.
Every person in business for him or herself is an earnest, hard working young man or woman, intent on growing their business to as big as they possibly can. A small business is one that is working hard at becoming a big business. And maybe with a zeal greater than those who distain capitalism while working to grow government. It is, without a doubt, a tight race.
I just can’t believe it! Jill Kuraitis, who I’ve criticized for blindly siding with “Butch” and the boys, comes out with a nice little article raising the dangers of having corporations or foundations or institutions, at both ends of the political spectrum, so heavily involved in the sponsorship of the WGA. She very accurately points out how the situation inevitably sets the stage for what is, in effect, tailor-made lobbying exposure disguised as a social event, shades of FREE. Kuraitis very correctly, properly, and evenhandedly points out transgressors of all kinds, from REI and the American Wind Energy Association at my end of the spectrum to BP and Monsanto over at the satanic end. She does a good job of focusing the article on the insidious presence of lobbying, not capitalist lobbying, not socialist lobbying, not enviro lobbying or exploitive lobbying, just lobbying …and the rednecks still throw rocks! Come on, pinheads, recognize the topic; recognize evenhanded journalism when it shows up; and try to learn when to use the carrot and when to use the stick.