By Retired Congressman Mo Brooks
This is an opinion column
In 2010, voters elected me to Congress. Shortly after being sworn in as Alabama’s 5th District Congressman, I received a bill demanding I pay the National Republican Congressional Committee $300,000.
The NRCC exists to help Republicans win office. Inasmuch as the NRCC endorsed a party-switcher — former Democrat and now Democrat again Parker Griffith — over me in the GOP Primary, I was taken aback by the NRCC’s brazen gall.
I asked for advice from colleagues. Their answer: if you want good committee assignments, you buy them. I grudgingly paid the $300,000 in campaign funds to be in a better position to get committee assignments that best represent 5th District interests.
This was my introduction into a bad system that corrupts freshmen congressmen and puts special interests first and the public last.
I break Congress’s corrupt system into parts:
- First, committee assignment purchase prices are $250,000-$500,000. The exact amount depends on a committee’s monetized value and whether it is an “A”, “B” or “C” committee[1]. Chairman of an “A” Committee[2] costs $1-$1.2 million. If bidding wars ensue, prices may go up.
Retired Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida explains that letter grades are “solely lashed to that committee’s ability to generate campaign cash for its members. (If you are on Ways and Means and control the tax code), there is no lobbyist in this town that would not swim across the Potomac to deliver you a $5,000 check.”
- Second, members of Congress cannot get committee purchase price money from Joe and Jane Citizen. They cannot afford it.
As Kentucky GOP Congressman Thomas Massie emphasizes, “Now where are you going to get that money? You’re not gonna go back home and have a fundraiser in somebody’s living room. That just doesn’t work. The people that fund your purchase of the committee seat are the people who have interest in the work product of that committee, DC lobbyists.”[4]
- Third, since Joe and Jane Citizen lack the money to fund the committee purchase price system, Congressmen must go to special interests to get the committee purchase price funding.
- Fourth, special interests demand a quid pro quo. You do as demanded, and put special interests above public interest, or you are cut off from the needed purchase money.
My growing disgust with this corrupt committee purchase system came to a head on the House Floor when a congressman (an intermediary for GOP leadership) offered me two different subcommittee chairmanships for $300,000 apiece. I declined each offer.
The third time I was asked, I gave copies of federal corruption and bribery statutes to the congressman, stated the purchasing committee power system was ethically dubious at best and criminal at worst, reminded him Congress had found Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt and that Holder might be motivated to hang a few Republican congressmen’s heads on his trophy wall, and further reminded him that the DC jury pool would be 90% Democrat.
I was never again asked to buy a committee assignment or chairmanship.
Interestingly, not long thereafter, a candidate for the NRCC chair distributed written campaign brochures with committee purchase price listings on it, arguing, ‘Elect me. I will charge you less for your committee powers.’”
A USA Today front-page article quoting GOP Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is illuminating:
Massie “was approached by a lobbyist who told him he could help the congressman raise enough money to get on the Ways and Means Committee ($500,000). That’s a powerful committee that oversees tax policy and is one of the most coveted panels in Congress.”
“He pulled me and my chief of staff into a meeting,” Massie said. “He offered to raise the money that would be required to get me on Ways and Means. This is a lobbyist telling me he can get me on Ways and Means.”
“It was one of the scummiest meetings I’ve ever been in,” Massie said. “I left just reeling, thinking about the implications for how this place works, when you realize that the lobbyists pick who goes on which committee.”
After thanking Massie on the House Floor for publicizing this corrupt practice, Massie replied, “Thank you, Mo. But I made a major mistake.”
I replied, “Mistake? I saw no mistake! I thought the article was great!”
Massie replied, “Well, I described the process as buying committee assignments. That’s not really accurate. It’s more of a rental agreement than a purchase agreement because you must repeatedly pay the rental price every two years.”
I conclude with clarifications.
First, the House operates differently from the Senate. While Senate chairmanship prices are likely higher, the Senate appears to give greater weight to seniority and merit when making committee decisions.
Second, buying committee assignments is bipartisan. Both parties do it. The differences is pricing structures and who you pay.
Third, many congressmen deny the committee assignment purchase system exists. They are partially correct but in substance wrong. Paying the purchase price into NRCC coffers does not guarantee a desired committee, but failure to pay the purchase price is a guarantee that you don’t get considered. That’s a distinction without a difference.
How can the public fix this corrupt process? Citizens must vote based on their own research, and never vote based on often false but always slick campaign ads special interests pay for. It’s that simple.
