October 28, 2006
“My Retainer Has Not Been Renewed or Refreshed” Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 06:00 PM EST There’s a famous story about Daniel Webster, the great nineteenth-century politician who served his native state of New Hampshire in the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms, and his adopted state of Massachusetts for three terms in the House and multiple terms in the U.S. Senate.
Together with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, Webster, known to his admirers as the Godlike Daniel, dominated American civic life for the first half of the nineteenth century and was widely regarded as the greatest political orator of his day. Webster was a dedicated public servant, but during his congressional tenure he also continued to draw fees as a lawyer and quasi-lobbyist. In a letter to Nicholas Biddle, president of the Second Bank of the United States, Webster, a Whig who supported central banking and vigorous government efforts to promote economic growth, wrote, “Since I have arrived here [in Washington], I have had an application to be concerned, professionally, against the bank, which I have declined, of course, although I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainers.” However appalling this shake-down may seem to the modern ear, and it was a shake-down, it was fairly standard practice in Webster’s day. There were few if any laws then governing congressional ethics, and congressmen were not particularly well compensated for their public work, which was more disruptive to their lives and livelihoods in the days before air travel and telephones. I was reminded of Webster’s letter to Biddle when I read today’s article in The New York Times about the corporate community’s current dilemma. With Democrats poised to take back the House, and less likely, but still in the game, to win back the Senate, should Main Street and Wall Street start shifting campaign contributions to Democratic candidates? In 2004 between 68 percent and 73 percent of corporate campaign contributions flowed to Republicans, who stood little risk of losing control of either chamber. This year, 67 percent of corporate contributions between January and September went to Republicans, while 57 percent of such contributions since October 1 have flowed to the GOP. A shift, but not a resounding one. On one level, I’m amused by the sheer stupidity of corporate America. I’m as much a believer as the next guy that it’s unwise to count unhatched chickens, but if I were trying to buy access to Congress, I’d be betting on Speaker Pelosi. If given the choice between talking with Rahm Emanuel on line one or Denny Hastert on line two, I’d pick up line one and switch Hastert to voice mail. On another level, I’m appalled to find Democrats like Vermont congressional candidate Peter Welch making proactive calls to business lobbyists and, in The New York Times’s words, “offering an opportunity to begin a good relationship if he wins election.” Welch might as well be asking for a refresher on that bank retainer. True, Welch and his colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, don’t accept personal kickbacks to finance expensive dinners at swank Boston oyster houses, as did Daniel Webster. (Well, okay, some do. Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and William Jefferson come to mind.) But many congressmen use legal loopholes to put their campaign accounts to personal use. Ken Silverstein, the Washington editor at Harper’s magazine, recently showed that Rep. Curt Weldon (R.-Pa.) spent $80,000 of his campaign funds on expensive dinners and lunches over ten years. Such outlays are commonplace and can be explained away as “campaign meeting expenses” (though Weldon’s final tally is surely extreme), and they’re probably legal. But they shouldn’t be. They effectively allow congressmen to convert corporate campaign contributions into untaxed, unreported income. If congressmen want expense accounts for fancy dinners, they should go back to the private sector and become bankers or lawyers. The U.S. Congress is not Skadden, Arps. And Daniel Webster has been out of public life for a very long time.
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