Over at BlogHouston, Kevin posits that would be light rail contractors really like Houston mayoral candidate Gene Locke. The BH posting builds on the writing of Houston Chronicle reporters Brad Olsen and Carrie Feibel, who write that Mr. Locke's ties to the Metropolitan Transit Authority are paying off in the form of $46,000 in campaign contributions that were obtained by Mr. Locke's mayoral campaign.
Hmmm.
The Wizard is not surprised at this and neither should his gentle readers. Metro's 30 miles of light rail will most likely end up costing somewhere around four billion dollars!. What is amazing is not that Mr. Locke was able to garner campaign funds from establishment for this campaign, it's that Mr. Locke was only able to obtain $46,000 from would be light rail contractors! He should have been able to obtain many times that amount considering that billions in contracts are at stake here.
Paul Magaziner, a Richmond Avenue businessman who has become a fiery critic of rail transit, emailed an Adobe file to members of the media that showed that Metro has spent about $1.38 million on legal counsel from three politically connected law firms to defend itself in court from a lawsuit filed by a Richmond Avenue businesswoman. Why does it take three law firms for Metro to defend itself in court? Did it only cost a few thousand, or perhaps $10-20 grand to generate $1.38 million in legal billings? If so, then what a payoff!
This reminds me of an ongoing theme of the Wizard's, namely that I do not care much for campaign finance limits. The reason I don't care for them is that campaign finance limits are almost always pushed by big government advocates who are fearful that, once they've pushed through the big government they desire, they suddenly wake up to the fact that creating big government also creates the conditions for fighting over control of all that big government. In other words, how much of your time and money is it worth to you (and your friends) to be able to get what you want?
Are you one of Houston's 5,000 police officers and want a $5,000 - $10,000 per year pay raise? Then why is the Houston Police Officer's Union (HPOU) PAC only allowed to give up to $10,000 for the mayoral election? After all, we're talking about a public issue (how much police officers are paid) that would cost taxpayers $25 - $50 million per year. So, why isn't HPOU allowed to give - say - $500,000 to the campaigns of mayoral hopefuls? After all, such a figure would only cost each police officer $100 apiece and the pay off to each police officer could be 50 - 100 times that much.
Similar logic could be applied to nearly any interest group in politics, whether it be teacher's unions, fire fighter's unions, Houston Intercontinental airport operations, municipal employees, all of whom have huge financial stakes in the form of underfunded pensions and general funding for their operations. It gets even worse at the state and federal level. Some people might wail that the 2008 presidential election cost over $1 billion, but you have to remember that the federal government now has a budget of over $3 trillion! Spending $1 billion to control Congress and the Presidency is quite a bargain when you can control three trillion dollars per year of spending, as well as the armed forces, tax collecting agencies, and the regulatory powers of the federal government.
In addition to revealing how much it's worth to control government, or to have a dominant voice in government, lifting campaign contribution limits would also allow small groups of people to pool together a substantial amount of money in order to make a candidate viable. It could also help cut down on time spent raising money.
Another issue is that it always seems that interest groups seem to have a much easier time coming up with money. The Tea Party movement has to resort to selling T-Shirts at events to raise money, while insider interest groups seem to effortlessly generate money for their causes.
The whole point being made here is that for all the griping about corruption from campaign contributions, there is an argument to be made that there would not be such a need to pony up that much money for political campaigns if there wasn't so much being fought over. Bear that in mind the next time you read a story about campaign finance.
Wizard.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at October 11, 2009 12:41 PM