Ooops... I accidentally compiled and analyzed data on organized money in Kansas politics.
Part of a series? Probably.
Last month I testified before the Kansas Senate Utilities Committee and called members out for corruption. The bill in question, SB 24, prevents municipalities from banning natural gas hookups in new development, a policy that has been enacted in some other states to lower emissions and move toward all-electric building stock. All things considered, the bill would have a fairly small impact for Kansans given that only one city has even toyed with this policy idea publicly.
The real concern for me was that the Senate Utilities committee saw fit to take action to protect natural gas companies from these policies as they refuse to take action to protect our planet and future. My written testimony included that sentiment, but in the days leading up to the actual hearing, I discovered something I felt should be acknowledged as part of this debate.
The organizations giving testimony in support of the bill (natural gas companies, the far-right Americans for Prosperity, restaurant industry groups, etc.) had donated $27,750 to the members of the Senate utilities committee in just the last election cycle. (You can watch my testimony here if you’re interested in shouty 25-year-olds and state legislative bureaucracy.)
Not surprisingly, the bill passed through committee and the full Senate body. It’s now up for final action in the House committee on Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications.
Organized Money
If you’re at all familiar with the Kansas legislature (or really most levels of government) none of this will surprise you. We all know that corporations use their money to influence the political process via lobbyists, campaign contributions, policy shops and independent expenditures for campaigns (Think, “this mailer is paid for by Kansans for Excellent Government Transparency.”).
I’m obviously not a fan of this system, but it’s the way things get done in state capitals all over the country. Even progressive organizations participate to influence policy creation for the benefit of regular people.
But calling out the corrupt system in a room almost exclusively filled with lobbyists and the related campaign contribution research exercise created more questions for me:
Which legislators accept the most organized money?
Which organizations are cutting the biggest checks to legislators?
Which are the most partisan organizations?
Do Republicans really accept more organized money than Democrats?
I’ve got a LOT more questions, but I’ll stop there for now.
Thankfully, Kansas requires candidates to submit contribution reports to the Secretary of State, which become public record. To answer my questions, I compiled this information in a (now relatively monstrous) series of Excel documents. Hopefully others will find it as interesting as I did.
The Data
Let me be clear. I am not an Excel wiz. I know a couple of formatting tricks and some basic tools (vlookup, pivot tables), but I know how to navigate the Governmental Ethics and Secretary of State databases and I have time on my hands.
In the interest of simplicity, I limited things to just the last election cycle (two years for the House and four years for the Senate) and to direct campaign contributions. I’m VERY interested in independent expenditures in the same cycle, but haven’t had a chance to dig through that data. Give me a shout if you’d like to help out.
I’ve also removed legislators that retired/chose not to run for reelection from parts of the data. Those numbers are however included in the total.
Which Chamber receives more organized money?
The Senate. By a lot.
Interestingly, House contributions stayed fairly steady year to year while Senate funds really ramped up in 2020.
Obviously it’s important to remember that Senate candidates have the opportunity to raise money over a four year span compared to the House’s two year cycle. But let’s also not forget that the Senate has 40 seats to the House’s 125.
House seat average: $8,591
Senate seat average: $65,658
Even with that wild difference, there are more House candidates than Senate.
House candidate average: $4,279
Senate candidate average: $31,266
Woof! Senators have twice as long to raise the money and represent roughly three times as many people as each Representative, but even with that expected difference of about 6x, they’re overshooting it.
Obviously not all candidates are created equal and there are often people who file without putting up much of a fight in terms or organizing or fundraising. So who are the worst offenders driving up these numbers?
Which legislators accept the most organized money?
House
Senate
Most of these people are current or former members of leadership OR key committee chairs. Here’s all their leadership positions:
House
Dan Hawkins: Majority Leader
Ron Ryckman: Speaker of the House
Tom Sawyer: Minority Leader
Blaine Finch: Speaker Pro Tem
Fred Patton; Chair of Judiciary
Ken Corbet: Chair of Agriculture and Natural Resources Budget
John Barker: Chair of Federal and State Affairs
Jan Kessinger
Chris Croft: Chair of Redistricting and Vice Chair of Insurance and Pensions
Stan Frownfelter: Former Ranking Member of Commerce and Labor
Senate
Rob Olson: Chair of Commerce
Ty Masterson: Current Senate President
Jeff Longbine: Chair of Financial Institutions and Insurance; Former Senate Vice President
Mike Petersen: Chair of Transportation
Gene Suellentrop: Majority Leader
Anthony Hensley: Former Minority Leader
Tom Hawk: Ranking Member on Transportation and Ways and Means
Carolyn McGinn: Former Chair of Ways and Means
Richard Billinger: Current Chair of Ways and Means
Brenda Dietrich: Previously Vice Chair of House Education
It’s worth mentioning that three incumbents on this list didn’t even win their race. Two Democrats: Sen. Anthony Hensley who served in the legislature for 40 years and Rep. Stan Frownfelter who was ousted by a 19-year-old primary challenger who admitted to abusing women; and one Republican: Rep. Jan Kessinger who lost to a more conservative primary challenger that went on to lose in the general.
Which organizations are cutting the biggest checks to legislators?
You’ll notice that the above organizations are donating to both parties and mostly represent various industry groups in healthcare, construction, finance and agriculture. I expected there to be more partisan interest groups here than industries, but I also suspect those show up more in independent expenditures than direct contributions.
You’ll also notice that these are primarily PACs, though some represent specific businesses. The distinction between PACs and businesses isn’t overly interesting because most of these PACs are funded by various businesses within their given industry.
I’m sure you’re also seeing the only solely partisan group in the Top 10 for both the House and Senate. The Kansas Chamber of Commerce is notorious for being funded by Republican activists like the Koch Brothers. I’m sure there’s a whole blog post hidden in that little red bar, but we’ll leave it there for now.
It’s pretty obvious that the big spenders are donating mostly to Republicans. Part of this is because Republicans run for more seats and have more frequent primaries. There were 197 Republican candidates in the last cycle and 158 Democrats. But these numbers don’t quite add up to the partisan difference of top donors. Which begs the question…
Which are the most partisan organizations?
These are really the first charts that made me say “Holy Sh*t!” It’s pretty well understood that Republicans have the big money, but in Kansas, there’s effectively no Democratic alternative. Though the usual suspects (mostly labor unions) are putting up left-leaning money, it pales in comparison to the big partisan groups on the left.
Again, this is just direct contributions so I don’t know (yet) what’s happening on the independent expenditure front.
So knowing what we do about the number of candidates in each party and the big industry and partisan players…
Do Republicans really accept more organized money than Democrats?
In short, yup.
It’s generally accepted that Republicans are better funded by special interests than Democrats and that’s certainly true in the Kansas legislature.
As we’ve talked about, these numbers become even more drastic when you factor in the number of candidates running for each chamber.
So yes, in the 2020 election cycle, Republicans accepted more organized money than Democrats.
More Questions
If you’re like me, (and read this far) I’m sure you’ve got more questions about these numbers. Questions like:
Who are these organizations and who is funding them?
Why do professional organizations of realtors, contractors and nurse anesthetists care about the Kansas legislature?
How does money influence how bills make it through the legislature?
What about the independent expenditures?
Do my elected officials take organized money?
I’m anxious to get those answers as well and will likely keep nibbling around the edges of organized money in our Kansas political process to answer them. Hit me up if you’re interested in helping out because this work is pretty labor intensive (and fully uncompensated).
Now what?
All things considered, there’s very little in this little research endeavor that surprised me, but putting this reality out in the open makes it possible to talk about the extent of the problem. Direct contributions to campaigns aren’t the worst of big money influence on our democracy, they’re just the easiest to analyze.
It’s hard to underestimate the impact of big money in elections. Through digital ads and printed mailers, groups that want certain types of policy changes from the legislature can put information (or disinformation) on any issue or candidate into voters’ hands. There’s not just an interested organization behind that bonkers candidate you can’t believe got elected - there’s a checkbook. And it’s being used beyond election season.
If you go up to the capitol on a normal day and sit in the gallery or any committee room, I guarantee you’ll be surrounded by lobbyists paid by corporations and special interests. (Myself included*) And there’s…. a lot of them. These are the people who really create policy. They’re in the room with legislators, guiding their hand as bills come together and suggesting seemingly small changes to statute that can have huge implications over time.
And I don’t even have time to talk about former legislators showing back up in the capitol as registered lobbyists.
The picture I’m hoping to paint for you is of a vast ecosystem of monied interests shifting the balance at every step in the process we (hilariously) refer to as Democracy. This artform is called “government relations” and basically amounts to the strategic distribution of money and information to get what you want from elected officials. And when it comes to money, the more you have, the more powerful you can advocate for…. well, whatever you want really.
Understanding this system is difficult because of its complexity and the diversity of interests benefiting from it. Exposing it is difficult for the same reason, but also because the tools to follow the money are limited. (That’s on purpose too.)
I’m not exactly sure what comes next, but the average voter needs to be asking these questions and I hope this information allows them to do that a little easier. Because although we don’t have as much power over our government as we might think, it still belongs to us.
*In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a registered lobbyist for the Sierra Club of Kansas, though the views shared here are solely mine.