New York Times 10/26/99
Business Seeks a Bigger Role in Campaigns for Congress
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON -- The United States Chamber of Commerce will step up its assistance to Congressional candidates that it considers friendly to business in an effort to counter the growing political influence of organized labor and other liberal groups, the chamber's president said on Monday.
The chamber, the nation's largest business organization, plans to select 35 House races and a dozen Senate races in which it feels it can tip the balance. The group would then deploy campaign contributions, advertising support and its grass-roots organization to help elect its preferred candidates, most of whom are sure to be Republicans.
Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's president, said the group would spend at least $100,000 in each race, for a total of nearly $5 million.
The total is a fraction of the $40 million that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. plans to spend this year and next to benefit candidates supported by organized labor, almost all of them Democrats.
But it comes at a time when the Republican leadership in Congress is growing more aggressive in soliciting campaign money from companies and business lobbyists to maintain the party's fund-raising advantage over the Democrats. The chamber's goal is to concentrate on a relative handful of close races where even a small amount of money or help in getting out the vote could make a difference.
"We have to be more aggressive if we expect people to support us on issues important to the business community," Donohue said.
Officials at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said the chamber was simply reacting to labor's success in recent years. The business group, they said, does not have the same close ties to its members that unions enjoy and does not have the field organization that labor has built to communicate with union members and get them to the polls.
"I'm curious to see how the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups are really able to mobilize voters," said Steve Rosenthal, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s political director.
Business has never been monolithic in its approach to politics. Small and medium-size businesses -- the chamber's main constituency -- tend to be owned by people who strongly back conservative positions on issues like taxes, limiting lawsuits and reducing Government regulation. While not as visible as big corporations, small business has tremendous influence among Republicans, particularly in the House.
Large companies tend to be less ideological than small business owners, and although they favor Republicans over all, they also give substantial support to Democrats. As a result, business groups in Washington have long felt that their influence was diffuse compared with that of the labor unions, which have grown increasingly aggressive in supporting Democrats in House and Senate races, especially since the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994.
Donohue, who vowed to make the chamber more of a force in Washington when he took over at the organization two years ago, said business groups faced ideological competition not just from unions, but from groups like environmentalists and trial lawyers that raise and contribute large sums to Democrats.
To help raise money for its political action committee and its own campaign operations, the chamber has hired Ted Welch, one of the Republican Party's most respected fund-raisers and former finance chairman for Lamar Alexander's unsuccessful Presidential bid. Welch said most of his effort would be focused on the entrepreneurs who own and run the three million businesses affiliated with the chamber.
Donohue said the chamber had not yet settled on which races it would concentrate. He said the group would probably back a few moderate and conservative Democrats, including Representative Charles W. Stenholm of Texas, who faces a tough race from a Republican challenger.
But most of the candidates it chooses to back will be Republicans. On Wednesday, chamber officials plan to meet with George V. Allen, the former Governor of Virginia, who is expected to seek the Senate seat held by Charles S. Robb, a Democrat. Donohue said other likely recipients of the chamber's aid would be three incumbent Republican Senators who face tough re-election fights: Spencer Abraham of Michigan, John Ashcroft of Missouri and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
Donohue said the chamber wanted to retain as much flexibility as possible to be able to identify tight races where it might be able to make a difference in the weeks leading up to Election Day next year. To do that, he said, the chamber would have to resist pressure from Republicans to spread money and logistical help among large numbers of candidates.
"We are in an emergency room, and this is triage," Donohue said. "We're going to pick the patients who are going to live."