Montgomery County politics was awash in campaign dollars – if not voter interest - this 2007 election season over the Board of Commissioners race to determine who controls the County Courthouse and the $.5 billion county budget that goes with it.

According to official campaign finance reports through October 22, Democrats Joe Hoeffel and Ruth Damsker raised almost $1.1 million, while the Republican ticket of Bruce Castor and Jim Matthews pulled in about $690,000. Counting the $330,000 Matthews garnered on his own, the competition for dollars at the top of the Montgomery County ballot amounted to pretty much a dead heat. The election, however, was far from that, as the Republicans maintained their 138-year dominance over County government by winning two of the three commissioner seats, despite the fact that Democrats for the first time managed to pick up a majority of the row office positions further down the ballot.

The $2 million at play at the top of the tickets is an astronomical and unprecedented sum for a suburban county contest. Yet while it represents a huge escalation of the battle for Montgomery County, the pile of cash apparently failed to stimulate voter interest. Countywide turnout registered at 30% in 2007, while four years ago, with the Republican and Democratic campaign treasuries combined totaling slightly more than $600,000 – more than three times less than 2007 – the turnout was actually higher at 32%.

From the standpoint of the Democrats, the tale is especially sobering. Having spent barely $100,000 for the Commissioners’ race in 2003, their more than ten-fold increase in fundraising (just through October 22) resulted in a reduced turnout from 2003 - instead of an increase large enough to put them over the top. (A breakdown by party affiliation is not yet available.) The dramatic boost in campaign cash for the Democrats this time around along with the continued up-tick in Democratic registration in Montco, even when coupled with the pent-up frustration directed at the Bush administration, still was not enough for a take-over of the county courthouse for the first time since Reconstruction. The guess here is that this has something to do with the fact that what was really at stake is a mystery for most voters, and the campaigns don’t provide much in the way of enlightenment – to put it mildly. A look at the distribution of the sources of campaign dollars provides some perspective.

In Montgomery County, of the $524,000 raised by Matthews-Castor in the last five and one-half months up to October 22, about $380,000, or 73% came from individual or business partnership contributions of $1,000 or more. And of that $380,000, $291,000, or 77% derived from contributions of at least $10,000. On the Democratic side, of the more than $867,000 raised by Damsker-Hoeffel in the same period, about $296,000, or 34% came from individual or partnership contributions of $1,000 or more. And of that $296,000, $116,000, or 39% derived from contributions of at least $10,000.

Considering Montgomery County’s median household income of $68,000 (2005), it is safe to say that a miniscule minority of citizens have the financial wherewithal to contribute at the level that these numbers indicate. Moreover, there are no limits to political giving in Pennsylvania, so the same folks can and do continue giving at an ever-increasing rate, at least as long as the Dow stays buoyant. Consequently, the funding of political campaigns, especially at this level, remains overwhelmingly the province of the affluent, the connected and those with considerable economic interests to promote and protect; any casual perusal of campaign finance reports will bear this out. While this may not be shocking news, it is hardly a healthy sign that those at the top of the income pyramid are vastly over-represented in the interaction between money and politics. In fact, the figures cited above under-play the level of concentration of political giving in a number of ways.

When many employees of a particular business - and sometimes a labor union – contribute to a candidate, it is not unreasonable to interpret those independent contributions as representing the overall support of the firm or organization involved. While the donors are primarily individuals – corporations being prohibited by Pennsylvania law from making political contributions - a roster of contributing employees from the same company can make a strong statement if the interests of that company happen to intersect with the political process. Professional services such as law firms, engineering, accounting, financial and real estate firms, which are typically structured as limited partnerships, are legally able to contribute directly to the candidate or political committee of their choice. Many of these firms also happen to be likely candidates for no-bid government contracts. Moreover, it is not unusual for well-connected firms seeking government work, construction companies, for example, to make numerous contributions through their principals to both sides of a political contest to hedge their bets and enhance the company presence at contract-time. Many firms give often, even within the same reporting period and then keep on donating generous sums up through the election. And then the cycle begins anew. What makes the process into a kind of sport for those in the upper echelons is that the Commonwealth has no limits on contributions. As long as you are eligible, you can keep playing.

And let’s not forget political action committees, which are notoriously successful “bundlers” of many separate contributions, usually from very high-income individuals, often with similar economic or political interests, say, real estate developers or law firms and sometimes even other political committees. Of course, the committees also can be creatures of labor unions and other groups, which may involve individuals of more modest means. Political action committees are especially loyal political warriors who are usually close to the party infrastructure. Some of the big ones working Montgomery County include the PA Future Fund, Montgo PAC, Race Street PAC, Southeast Realtors PAC, Metropolitan Council of Carpenters, and PECO PAC, and there are lots more. A number of them are fond of giving to both sides in county races and to both county parties.

PACs also add a layer of anonymity for their contributors since candidate and party contribution reports do not include the identity of individual donors, although committees do have to file their own reports identifying backers – if you can find them. Some big law firms, on the other hand, apparently are not very concerned about anonymity since they use multiple conspicuous funding vehicles: they give directly through their firm; keep a presence through sizable contributions by individual partners and contribute through their own PAC.

The truth is that despite the reams of paper one can pore through down at the Election Board (have they heard of the internet?), genuine disclosure and clear reporting on who – and what interests – are giving how much to the financing of politics is more vision than reality. Plenty of entries requiring employer identification and occupation - mandatory for any contribution over $250 – are left blank on those report lines. It is actually common for professionals in firms, which are major political players, to skip disclosure beyond name and address. Or sometimes self-employment is indicated by professionals who actually work in prominent firms. (Pennsylvania law stipulates that the contributor, not the candidate or political committee, is responsible for the identifying information.) Occasionally you see contributions logged from the same source for the same amount on the same date. Is that a mistake (not necessarily, but it’s hard to know)? In some cases, hefty contributions are wrongly tucked into expense report sections. I could go on . . .

In general, these reporting inadequacies seem to surface on an equal opportunity basis between the major parties. With sometimes thousands of data entries from a slew of candidate and committee reports in a single cycle, the process is not easy to police – and you can bet that no one on the state or county level even tries. However, the most egregious case of inadequate disclosure that cropped up in the Election Reform Network’s research bears mentioning. It involves the Montgomery County Republican Committee (MCRC) reports over the last two years.

The MCRC reported receiving more than $200,000 in 2006 and more than $80,000 in 2007 (based on reports through October 22) from the “MCRC Dinner Committee.” For 2006, the contributions of the dinner committee amounted to about 40% of the total dollars raised by MCRC. In 2007, the dinner group is responsible for almost 20% of contributions to MCRC. The state campaign finance law places no restrictions on rubber chicken eating by any political party or campaign entity, but it does require disclosure of the specific source of all contributions over $50. The MCRC entries unaccounted for come in units as large as $48,000. It seems highly unlikely, then, for the G.O.P. to go to the trouble of raising all that cash in such small increments. Assuming tickets were $50, that would mean 960 people ponied up for the chicken, without running afoul of the reporting requirement.

That’s probably not what happened. The Montgomery County Republican Committee may have met legal requirements by filing separate reports for their Dinner Committee, as if it was an independent organization. So, from the County party’s reports, we get no information other than some dinner committee is raising big dollars. But if you’re savvy enough to peel away the next layer (which I was not, at least initially), you will discover additional reports under the rubric of “MCRC Dinner Committee.” It is those reports, which, presumably, provide the legally required information on the identity of the contributors of the mysterious $280,000. And they call this transparency?

Sorting out how campaign dollars affects governmental outcomes in Montgomery County is for another day (stay tuned), but even this limited account of political giving has unsettling implications. Combine the problem of campaign funding from the well-connected few with the general lack of awareness of county government issues on the part of most citizens –and election campaigns don’t seem to help much - and then throw in a generous sprinkling of inadequate citizen access and you have a recipe for government behind closed doors. If local politics becomes an insiders’ game fueled by big money from the scant few who pay attention, then, sadly, all those no-show voters may be onto something.

Keep an eye out for the Election Reform Network’s future reports on campaign financing and citizen access.