Casinos lend heavy soft-money support

Friday, Oct. 20, 2000 | 11:20 a.m.

It should come as no surprise that the top six Nevada donors of soft money to national Republican and Democratic Party committees are gaming corporations.

It also should come as no surprise that Nevada's 242 soft-money donors favored the GOP over the Democrats by a margin of $2.2 million to $1.6 million through Sept. 30 of this election cycle, according to the FECInfo Internet website.

That's because soft money, which is virtually unregulated and can be given in unlimited amounts for so-called "party building" activities, usually favors the party that controls Congress. A majority of gaming's soft money once went to Democrats, but that changed when the Republicans took control of Congress following the November 1994 elections.

Soft money is used to help pay for those negative television advertisements that viewers have endured this campaign season. It was soft money that helped the national Democrats pay for ads that blasted Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Ensign's anit-abortion stance. Soft money also enabled the national Republicans to go negative on TV against the Medicare prescription drug plan advocated by Ensign's Democratic foe, Ed Bernstein.

Jim Hulse of Reno, for one, is sickened by soft money. The president of the Nevada chapter of Common Cause said campaigns would be better off without such contributions.

"What soft money does is filter money through the parties rather than the candidates, so it's not accountable by source," Hulse said. "It's the money that funds a lot of the negative ads we see on TV, so it drowns out any substantive discussion on the issues.

"There will be no solutions to this until we get clean money campaigns with some type of public financing."

The top Nevada donors of soft money this election cycle, according to FECInfo, have been: MGM MIRAGE, $854,621 ($450,000 to Republicans, $404,621 to Democrats); Mandalay Resort Group, $628,000 ($578,000 to Republicans, $50,000 to Democrats); International Game Technology, $405,000 ($280,000 to Republicans, $125,000 to Democrats); Park Place Entertainment Corp., $198,385 ($103,385 to Democrats, $95,000 to Republicans); Boyd Gaming Corp., $111,000 ($81,000 to Democrats, $30,000 to Republicans); and Station Casinos Inc., $110,500 ($65,000 to Democrats, $45,000 to Republicans).

MGM spokesman Alan Feldman said his company, ranked 30th among all soft money donors nationwide and 21st among corporations, is not pleased that soft money is often used for negative advertising. But he said there were legitimate reasons his company made donations.

"We participate to the extent the law allows, because we are one of Nevada's largest employers, and we have the interests of our employees and shareholders in mind when we participate," Feldman said. "If soft money went away, that would be fine with us so long as it went away equally for everyone."

If one discounted the heavy soft money support given by Mandalay Resort Group to Republicans, the national Democrats would have received almost as much soft money from Nevada as has the GOP. One reason the nation's 46th largest soft money donor and 31st among corporations has given heavily to the GOP is that its chairman, Mike Ensign, is the father of former congressman and current Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Ensign.

Among the other top Nevada contributors, IGT is 99th in the nation among soft money donors and Park Place Entertainment is 173rd.

The top individual soft money donors in Nevada were Anchor Gaming Chairman Stanley Fulton of Las Vegas, $95,000 (all to Republicans); Sun President and Editor Brian Greenspun and wife, Myra, of Henderson, $90,000 (all to Democrats); and Reno Realtor Theodore Day, $65,000 (all to Republicans). Nationally among individual donors those amounts ranked Fulton tied for 335th, the Greenspuns tied for 349th and Day tied for 467th.

Ryan Erwin, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, attributed his party's soft money advantage in Nevada to the quality of the GOP's candidates and issue positions.

"It is indicative of how Nevadans feel about not only our presidential candidate but our congressional candidates," Erwin said. "It says they believe the Republicans have a better chance of leading America."

But David Cherry, spokesman for the Nevada State Democratic Party, said gaming interests have been supportive of Democratic officeholders such as Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley. About the only prominent Democratic candidate who has received scant gaming support in recent years is Bernstein.

"The gaming industry is confident that Democrats do a good job representing gaming issues and the state's rights," Cherry said. "They may give to Republicans out of fear because if any party initiates legislation to regulate gaming, it will tend to come from Republicans."

Of the $2.2 million in Nevada soft money that has gone to the GOP, the leading recipients were the National Republican Senatorial Committee, $988,949, the National Republican Congressional Committee, $593,600, and the Republican National Committee's Republican National State Elections Committee, $483,600.

Of the $1.6 million that went to the Democrats, the leading recipients were the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, $648,371, the Democratic National Committee, $505,000, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, $436,885.

Some, but not all, of that money goes back to state parties. That is why it is difficult to trace.

FECInfo reported that through Sept. 30 Republican national party organizations received $163.9 million in soft money, compared with $114.9 million for Democrats.