Congress & Lobbyists: The Inside Influence
Game
HS: Have the Rublicans fundraising tactics changed now that they are
the majority?
REHR: Sometimes the Republicans get dumped on because they're raising PAC
money and they're, you know, looking for contributions, and they're trying
to hire people in the Washington firms that are loyal to them. That all
has to happen in order for them to retain control and to increase their
margins in the next election. I mean, they're not going to walk away from
money saying, "Well, now that we're in the majority, we don't need
to fund raise anymore." I mean that would be suicide...
HS: How important are your contributions and other (beer) wholesalers contributions
to playing the money game?
REHR: For the 1995-96 campaign cycle, we'll probably raise 1.4 million dollars
from beer wholesalers and their eligible employees. My pitch to the beer
wholesalers are very simple. This is partly insurance. We want to elect
people who understand business, who understand small business, and who understand
the beer business. And the goal of our PAC is to have a pro small business,
pro beer wholesaler Congress. And those are the kind of people we want here
and we aggressively support them. In terms of back home, you know, it's
TV, it's consultants, it's polling, telephone operations have all made campaigns
quite expensive as you well know. And unless you have the money, you just
don't have a realistic shot of winning...
HS: How does the fundraising work?
REHR: We usually get fund-raising invitations in one of three ways. Number
one, an invitation card or a letter saying, "I'm having a fund-raiser.
I'd like you to come." Number two, we will get a personal call from
a professional fund-raiser who's working for the member of Congress or the
Senator saying, "We're having a fund-raiser. We'd really like you to
be here." Number three is when the member will personally call from
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee if they're Democrats or
from the National Republican Congressional Committee if they're Republicans.
You know, that's when the phone rings. It's Congressman X or Congresswoman
Y on the phone, and they say, "Hi, David. I'm having a fund-raiser.
I'd like you to come. Can you? And a, a lot of the, uh, uh, are, "Yes,
you've been with us. You know, we really appreciate you. We want to help
you." Sometimes you have to tell people no and it upsets them. Say,
"You know we'd like to be with you but you know you don't have a voting
record that's very good with the future of our, the livelihood of our membership...
HS: What type of candidate do you target for help?
REHR: We disproportionately help challenged candidates, open seat candidates,
younger members like the freshman class because that's when they'll remember
you the most, early on. Once they've been in Congress ten years or they've
been in the Congress twelve years or they run for the Senate and they've
been there two terms, they kind of, they remember who helped them in the
beginning. And that's our goal, to be remembered who helped them in the
beginning...