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Helping Congressmen get re-elected is an increasingly popular device. Veteran Washington Lobbyist Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. is on no fewer than 50 "steering committees" set up to raise money for congressional election campaigns. By night, Good Ole Boy Boggs can be found shmoozing at Capitol Hill fund raisers, where lobbyists drop off envelopes containing checks from Political Action Committees (PACs) at the door before digging into the hors d'oeuvres. By day, Boggs lobbies Congressmen, often the same ones for whom he has raised money the night before. Lately high-power political consulting firms such as Black, Manafort & Stone have taken not only to raising money for candidates but actually to running their campaigns: planning strategy, buying media, and polling. These firms get paid by the candidates for electioneering services, and then paid by private clients to lobby the Congressmen they have helped elect. In the trade this cozy arrangement is known as double dipping. Special-interest giving to federal candidates has shot up eightfold since 1974, from $12.5 million to more than $100 million by the 1984 election. Nonetheless, PACs can give no more than $5,000 to a single campaign, and all contributions are publicly filed with the Federal Election Commission. "Elections are so expensive that the idea of a PAC's having inordinate influence is ridiculous," says Boggs.
Some Congressmen are not so sure. "Somewhere there may be a race of humans who will take $1,000 from perfect strangers and be unaffected by it," dryly notes Congressman Frank. Says Congressman Leon Panetta of California: "There's a danger that we're putting ourselves on the auction block every election. It's now tough to hear the voices of the citizens in your district. Sometimes the only things you can hear are the loud voices in three-piece suits carrying a PAC check."
Even the most reputable influence peddlers use their political connections to build leverage. As director of the 1984 G.O.P. Convention, Lobbyist William Timmons, a quietly genial man who represents such blue- chippers as Boeing, Chrysler, ABC and Anheuser-Busch, controlled access to the podium. G.O.P. Senators lobbied him for prime-time appearances. A Wall Street Journal reporter described Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, who was running for re-election in the fall of 1984, thanking Timmons a bit too effusively for allotting time for him to address the convention. "You told me you'd give me a shot," gushed Domenici. "So I appreciate it, brother."
Family ties help open doors. Tommy Boggs' mother Lindy is a Congresswoman from Louisiana; his father, the late Hale Boggs, was House majority leader. Other congressional progeny who as lobbyists have traded on their names for various interests: Speaker Tip O'Neill's son Kip (sugar, beer, cruise ships); Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole's daughter Robin (Century 21 real estate); Senator Paul Laxalt's daughter Michelle (oil, Wall Street, Hollywood); and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jamie Whitten's son Jamie Jr. (steel, barges, cork).