Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose party is struggling mightily to make ends meet heading into a presidential election year, wants a $20 million taxpayer bailout to help cover next summer's Democratic nominating convention in Cleveland.
The congresswoman from Weston has drafted a bill to restore money both parties used to receive from the federal government to help defray the costs of running their national conventions, the Washington Times reported.
Congress had stopped the practice just a year ago.
The Congressional Budget Office let DWS' cat out of the bag last week in a letter, saying the congresswoman’s proposal to tap a presidential campaign fund would probably give each party about $20 million in taxpayer money to help with costs.
DWS has a special way of looking at it: “We support no taxpayer funding as long as there’s an alternate way for us to raise the funds to mount a successful convention,” she wrote in an email. In other words, Democrats frown on using tax dollars to throw a nominating party, but they'll take it if they can't get it any other way.
It was only last year when lawmakers killed money for the conventions. They concluded the political parties and their presidential nominees -- who each raised $1 billion in 2012 -- no longer needed taxpayers' help, and instead it should be used to finance research on children’s diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
Said the Washington Times, "Months after the change, however, the two parties began to worry that they wouldn’t be able to pay for their conventions. Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress struck a deal to raise the contribution limits so donors could give nearly $100,000 to convention funds, in addition to other contributions, whose limits were also raised."
As it happens, Republican National Committee spokeswoman Allison Moore told the Times her party doesn’t need the help. The RNC has done better under the new rules than the DNC, "which has a troubled financial picture." The Times confirms the DNC has raised $51.2 million this year through Oct. 31 but spent $53.4 million -- a bad balance in the year before major elections.
Meanwhile, the RNC has raised $89.3 million and spent $74 million, keeping $20.4 million in cash.
DWS' bill would allow the parties to tap into the Presidential Election Campaign Fund — the money taxpayers can earmark on their annual filing forms to help defray the costs of presidential campaigns -- and make it available to political conventions.
There's enough available to give the Democrats the $20 million they need for their convention, though the total cost based on past conventions is likely to be at least $80 million.
Security money for conventions is a separate item, incidentally, and cannot be banned. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress has earmarked about $50 million to help defray costs to state and local law enforcement for securing each convention site.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: NancyLBSmith
