[A]t the bottom of the emailed invitation to Wednesday night’s Speaker’s Soiree at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Montpelier, there’s a note in small print: “House members are not soliciting funds from lobbyists or lobbyist employers for this event.”
That’s because it would be illegal if they were. And perhaps it needs to be said, because you could be mistaken for thinking that’s exactly what’s happening.
“It goes right up to the line of what is allowed under the law,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
While lawmakers can’t ask for money from the people or firms who are lobbying them while the Legislature is in session, political parties and political action committees can.
“We don’t operate with the same restrictions that the elected officials do about raising money during the session,” Vermont Democratic Party Chair Terje Anderson said about the event, which was co-hosted by the party and the Vermont House Democrats, a political action committee.
“It’s a way to get money from these folks to support a political party,” he said, adding that it was also a “social opportunity” for politicians and lobbyists to hang out somewhere apart from the usual watering holes in Montpelier’s tiny downtown.
A couple hundred people showed up for the event in a sparse conference room in the hotel just a couple minutes from the Statehouse — a favorite spot for such fundraisers. It was mostly a stand-and-mingle event, with a cash bar, a table of hors d’oeuvres and a half hour of speeches celebrating Majority Leader Jill Krowinski, a representative from Burlington and an architect of the Democrats current “super coalition” in the House.
Lobbying firms were among those invited to donate $1,000 to “sponsor” the event or $500 to “host” it. And some of them did, as the Vermont House Democrats told their followers in a public Facebook event.
Necrason Group, Leonine Public Affairs and Downs Rachlin Martin all paid to sponsor the evening. MMR and Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer were hosts. (Many top Democrats also donated — Sen. Patrick Leahy chipped in to sponsor and Attorney General TJ Donovan to host.) Anderson said the party raised about $20,000 for the event.
“I think Democratic supporters, you know, range across a broad variety of professions,” said House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero. “So some of them are lobbyists and we’re really careful to make sure that we are, you know, that we’re following the law.”
Johnson stressed that the party organized the event. But she hosted it, and it was her official office on the top of the invite. “It’s always been called the Speaker’s Soiree, since before the law was passed,” she said. “And there’s, you know, a nice alliteration to it.”
Burns said the point of the event was pretty clear.
“I think anybody attending is hoping to be seen and recognized by the speaker, presumably,” he added. “And that’s part of what I think previous restrictions were trying to get at in not letting lobbyists contribute to candidates or leadership PACs during the biennium.”
Secretary of State Jim Condos didn’t go to the soiree, but said by telephone Thursday that it was “allowed by law.” He pooh-poohed questions about whether he personally approved of his party asking lobbyists for money just down the street from the Statehouse.
“I’m really struggling with what your question is. It sounds like you already have a thesis behind your story and you want me to confirm or deny — and I don’t think that’s fair,” he said.
“I believe we have transparency in this state,” he added. “I think that’s the whole idea is we have declarations on the website so that Digger and others can pull that information up. That’s what it’s all about — accountability and transparency.”
After about an hour of chit chat Wednesday evening, the speaker delivered a heartfelt speech honoring Krowinski for her leadership and vision, and then introducing former speakers Shap Smith, Gaye Symington and others to deliver their own tributes to Krowinski.
Rep. Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, said Krowinski had the power of water, a gentle and soothing
presence whose power should not be underestimated. A few of the speakers predicted that Krowinski would be involved in electing the first woman to represent Vermont in Washington D.C., either as a candidate or operative.
“There are people here that that want to honor all the work that Jill has done over the years,” Johnson said after the speeches.
The money raised Wednesday night doesn’t go directly to the politicians who turned up, a crowd that included members of the House and Senate, but some of it will likely end up in their campaign coffers.
The Democratic Party contributed just more than $53,000 to dozens of candidates during last year’s campaign cycle — Krowinski received more than $500. Almost $30,000 went to Christine Hallquist, the party’s candidate for governor (who was not at the soiree).
Chuck Storrow, a lawyer and lobbyist at Leonine Public Affairs, said both major parties invited lobbyists to fundraisers, but the Democrats seem to be doing it more often than Republicans these days.
“It’s a gesture of goodwill,” he said of why lobbyists turn out for the them. “We support the political process because we make our living out of a political process.”
Storrow said lobbyists have no expectation to get something in return for their contributions, noting that “access” wasn’t hard to come by in Vermont’s halls of power.
“It creates maybe a degree of goodwill where they will listen to us, but I don’t really think it gives us a huge leg up over an ordinary or non-contributor or anything,” Storrow said.
“You know, if you want to ask for meeting with Speaker Johnson, you know, just anybody, you’ll get one,” he added.
Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, the new chair of the House General, Housing, and Military Affairs Committee, said more important than how the money way coming in was making sure that it was transparent and not influencing decisions in the Statehouse.
“I’ve been here long enough to know that money talks, and it can talk if it’s not managed properly by the candidates and the party doesn’t manager properly, but I’m also not so naive to think that we can do what we strive to do without those kinds of donations,” Stevens said.
“It won’t change my relationships with anybody who donates to the party or anybody who doesn’t donate,” he added. “It’s really each of us individually has to make a decision about how we’re influenced by advocates or lobbyists.”
Stevens, like Anderson and other Democrats, said the party is playing within the rules that exist, and that they would prefer to see a publicly financed system that did not allow corporations and PACs to have almost unlimited ability to spend on political campaigns.
Stevens said he’s never needed to go big on fundraising because he’s never had a serious challenge.
“But when I do I want to be able to raise money to equal footing as my opponents might,” he added. “If we leave one hand tied behind our back we are going to lose ground, because other people will outspend us.”
Anderson said the party was already making an effort to be more selective about where its contributions were coming from — staying away from big pharma and fossil fuel, for example.
“We try really hard to at least not take things from groups that are opposed to our basic values and stances as a party,” he said.
So why is it OK to take money from lobbyists like MMR, which has represented Exxon Mobil and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America?
“The party doesn’t then do anything for them,” Anderson said. “It’s not like we change our platform to please them.”
Smith, the former speaker, said he had concerns about the law preventing lawmakers from fundraising from lobbyists when it was passed, because it simply pushed money into darker corners or the political system.
“I feel like you ought to actually make it visible where the money’s going,” he said. “ What worries me is that if you limit corporate or lobbyist donations, those interests goes deeper.”
The ideal, he said, would be overturning the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case, but until then sunlight should be the priority — and there was nothing opaque about the Speaker’s Soiree.
“You have to raise money — you just do — to run a successful campaign,” he said. “And that is what’s happening. The party’s raising the money and it is what it is.”
