According to a report by the Idaho Center on Democracy and Open
Government, during the last election cycle special interests spent over
$2.5 million to influence the outcome of elections. Each of these
groups has a stake in what happens at the state legislature. Each of
these groups believes their campaign contribution will at the very
least provide with access to elected officials. Each of these groups
feel they need to “Pay to Play.”
For the election cycle 2003-2004, $3,831,452 was
contributed to the campaigns of Idaho’s candidates. This is an increase
of over $1 million from the last election cycle (2001-2002) and an
increase of over $2 million from the election cycle of 1993-1994. With
the exception the election cycle of 1997-1998 (right after the
legislature passed campaign contributions limits), the trend of
campaign contributions has risen astronomically (see graph).
Where does this money come from? Increasingly, as this report shows, more and more money is coming from special interest groups and Political Action Committees (PACs) set up by powerful corporations. These large amounts of money are dwarfing the money contributed by individuals leading more and more.
Most of the Idaho Legislature Leadership ran unopposed races and yet they continued to raise campaign contributions that they then funneled into other legislative campaigns around the state.
A case in point is District 13 Representative Delores Crow. Rep Crow is the Chair of the powerful House Revenue and Taxation Committee where all tax bills live or die. She ran unopposed and yet raised over $27,000 from Special Interest Groups and PACs. Specifically, she accepted:
§ $2,000 from Micron Technology – a corporation that got a big tax break this session.
§ $1,000 from the Idaho Business PAC – which received $3,500 from Micron Technology.
§ $750 from SunCor – a large Development corporation that successfully lobbied, with the help of Rep. Crow, for a bill that will allow them to pass on the costs of their developments to taxpayers.
Since Rep. Crow had no opponent in her race, she was able to use the extra money she raised for things like:
§ $865 given to Canyon County Republicans, which redistributed that money to other campaigns.
§ $135 given to US Rep Butch Otter’s campaign
§ $100 given to District 17 Kathie Garrett’s campaign
§ $100 given to Matt Beebe who was running for a county commissioner position.
These are just a few of the examples of a campaign system that has resulted in a systematic distrust of elected officials by their constituents.