Missouri lawmakers reconsider campaign donation limits

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- There is a common misconception among people applying Biblical truths to life that money is the root of all evil.

What the Bible actually says is the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

Missouri senators have essentially decided as much -- passing an ethics bill that would allow them to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, businesses and political action committees.

Their theory is that big money does not inherently make politics evil. In fact, their argument goes, the removal of current campaign contribution limits actually could make it easier to spot the potentially corrupting ties between donors and politicians.

When lawmakers return today from their annual spring break, the ethics legislation will head to the House. If approved by representatives and the governor, the bill would represent a dramatic shift in philosophy from just a dozen years ago.

In 1994, Missourians were clamoring to cap the unlimited amounts of money pouring into political campaigns. An initiative petition drive sought to limit contributions to House candidates at $100, Senate candidates at $200 and statewide candidates -- such as for governor -- at $300.

Legislators, meanwhile, passed their own higher version of the limits -- $250 for House races, $500 for the Senate and $1,000 for statewide candidates, all adjusted biennially for inflation.

The legislative action did little to assuage voters, who passed the stricter limits that November by a margin of nearly 3-to-1.

But barely a year after voter enactment, a federal appeals court struck down the lower limits as an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. When that happened, the higher limits passed by lawmakers automatically kicked in. They were challenged, too, and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2000.

Yet Missouri's contribution limits don't appear to have stemmed the rising cost of campaigns.

In 1992, Democrat Mel Carnahan raised $4.7 million in unlimited amounts while winning a governor's race that cost five candidates a total of $21 million through the primary and general elections.

In 2004, Republican Matt Blunt raised almost twice that much -- $9.2 million -- in contribution-capped installments while winning a governor's race that cost three candidates a total of $28 million through the primary and general elections.

Yet it was harder to determine the exact source of money going to candidates.

That's because Missouri law provides an avenue to circumvent the limits on individual contributions, which in 2004 was $1,200 for a gubernatorial candidate. Political party committees could give candidates 20 times that amount -- $12,100 by check, more through in-kind contributions.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the state Ethics Commission reports that the number of political party committees in Missouri has nearly doubled in recent years -- from 176 at the end of 2000, to 328 as of this March. There not only are state Republican and Democratic committees, but ones for congressional, Senate and House districts, counties and even wards.

So a donor who gives the maximum $1,200 to a candidate can channel tens of thousands of additional dollars to him or her by giving the money to political party committees, which then give most or all of it to the candidate.

The Senate legislation would repeal the current caps on individual contributions to candidates and instead apply them to regional political party committees. The result, presumably, would be an end to the funneling in favor of direct donations to candidates.

Political scientist Rick Hardy thinks it's an idea worth trying.

"What we've had in the past is probably hypocritical," said Hardy, of the University of Missouri-Columbia. "We've had a lot of creative financing that's made it difficult to assess really who's giving what, when and how."

But a group behind the 1994 ballot initiative wants contribution caps to remain.

"The more you lift contribution limits, the more you let politics be decided by people with money," said Jeff Ordower, the Midwest director of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "This is purely in their self-interest" for lawmakers.

That's the kind of criticism House members will have to consider as they decide whether removing caps on what people give them actually constitutes reform.

Few appeared eager to take a stand when asked about the bill on the day it passed the Senate.

"I think that our current system with contribution limits is not a bad one," opined House Minority Leader Jeff Harris, D-Columbia.

House Speaker Pro Tem Carl Bearden, R-St. Charles, was the only one of a couple dozen Republicans at a news conference to answer a question about the contribution limits. He said repealing them is "the right thing to do."

"I believe it is more important to see where the money is coming from than (to limit) how much it is," he said.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Capitol Correspondent David A. Lieb covers Missouri government and politics for The Associated Press.