Of PACs and Campaign Pledges

By William R. Doerner

Under fire, Mondale orders some PAC money returned

For Walter Mondale, the frustration mounted at each stop. From a VIP lounge at the Baltimore-Washington airport, he put in a telephone call to Lane Kirkland, only to be told that he was away from his office. Mondale tried twice more, from the Columbus airport, and finally reached the AFL-CIO president. Mixing sternness with pleading, he told Kirkland to halt the flow of money that unions were funneling into Mondale's effort through supposedly independent groups called "delegate committees." Said the former Vice President: "I really have to make sure it's stopped."

But the issue refused to go away. In Tennessee the next day, more than half the questions at a press conference dealt with the money flowing from political-action committees (PACs) to his 127 delegate committees. Retreating to his suite at the Nashville Hyatt Regency Hotel with Senior Adviser John Reilly, the Democratic front runner exploded, "This is getting to be a pain in the butt. The press isn't going to let go of it." After a flurry of calls to his Washington headquarters, Mondale ordered that the delegate committees be disbanded Immediately. Said he: "I just want to get rid of them, period."

The noisy debate over the delegate committees and their PAC money at times threatened to submerge the substantive issues of the campaign. The amount of money in dispute is probably no more than $500,000; Mondale is expected to spend a total of $24.2 million before the convention. But more than technicalities were involved. The controversy undercut the pledge Mondale made early in his candidacy that he would not accept PAC contributions and raised anew questions about how beholden he is to organized labor. Mondale took the matter so seriously that when Colorado Senator Gary Hart began taunting him for not actually returning the funds ("Give the money back, Walter--that's the way to solve the problem"), the former Vice President agreed to do almost exactly that. He announced that he will order the delegate committees to return all PAC money and some other contributions, totaling about $300,000.

Delegate committees, which were first permitted in the 1976 elections, are groups formed by prospective delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The money they raise is not counted against the candidate's spending limits. But the groups must operate independently, without assistance from the candidate's authorized campaign staff.

Though lines of autonomy inevitably blur to some extent, it was clear that the Mondale committees were far from independent operations. Most were spawned by a memo sent in January by Elaine Kamarck, a Mondale coordinator, to potential Mondale delegates offering assistance to those who wished to form local fund-raising units. Kamarck noted that while Mondale himself had called PAC contributions improper for a presidential candidate, the delegate committees "may make their own decision." Critics charge that this was an open invitation for committees to seek hefty donations from labor-union PACs. Many delegate groups did: of the contributions to committees recorded so far, more than 80% came from labor PACs. The delegate committees assumed an Important role in February following Mondale's loss to Hart in New Hampshire. In his successful Pennsylvania primary race, for example, Mondale pared his own campaign's expenses to about $200,000, but his delegate committees added 50% to that. Moreover, workers laid off from his national staff began popping up in paid positions--more than 30 in all--on local delegate committees.

Fred Wertheimer, president of the nonpartisan Common Cause, accused the Mondale committees of "threatening the integrity of the presidential public financing system." Hart filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, charging that the groups were violating federal laws; a ruling is not expected before June. The Coloradan also taped a series of radio and TV spots asking, "Can a President act in our national interest when he owes so much to special interests?"

Hart's PAC attack formed the focus for a broader assault on Mondale that Hart's strategists hope will halt what seems to be the front runner's inexorable march. Hart won last week in Vermont (46% to 33%) and Utah (51% to 20%), but Mondale holds a 1,135-to-605 lead in delegates; 1,967 are needed for the nomination. Hart's hard-line tactics are expected to continue through the next batch of primaries and caucuses, culminating with votes in Texas and Louisiana on May 5 and Ohio, Indiana, Maryland and North Carolina on May 8. "Perhaps we cannot expect every President to be a profile in courage," Hart said last week in Austin. "But, at the least, we cannot accept a President who is primarily a profile in constituency service."

Should Hart's aggressive new drive fail to pay off, some of his aides say, he will reassess his strategy; particularly if Mondale wins in Texas and Ohio, it will be almost impossible to deny him the nomination, and Hart may decide for the sake of party unity to aim his sharpest fire from that point on at Reagan. But Hart is bitter about what he sees as Mondale's hypocrisy. That resentment seethed to the surface last week when he noted, more than once, that he now doubts there is any way, even in the name of Democratic unity or his own future standing in the party, that he could serve as Mondale's running mate. --By William R. Doerner. Reported by Sam Allis with Hart and David Beckwith with Mondale

With reporting by Sam Allis, David Beckwith