Shays, Farrell Duke It Out With Their Pocketbooks
By Adam Kredo
WASHINGTON, March 2 – As he gears up for what many expect to be one of the nation’s most competitive congressional races, Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, has raised more than twice as much money as Democratic challenger Diane Farrell has raised.
As of Dec. 31, 2005, Shays, who was first elected to the House in a special election in 1987, had contributions of more than $1.3 million, according to financial disclosure reports filed by the candidate with the Federal Election Commission. Farrell raised $585,482 through the same date.
Despite the cash advantage, Shays is ” one of the top ten most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the country,” according to Stuart Rothenberg, author of The Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan analysis of American politics and elections.
Shays, who in 2004 won the race against Farrell by a margin of 14,160 votes, reported a year-end total of $892,552 cash on hand, while Farrell reported having $452,208. Cash on hand is the total available for expenditure by a candidate.
Fundraising has yet to pick up at this point, with the Connecticut primary not until Aug. 8, but Shays lags far behind some colleagues who reported raising more than $1 million in campaign funds last year.
“I think Chris Shays doesn’t like some of the things about being a politician,” Rothenberg said in a telephone interview. “He doesn’t like to attack; I suspect he doesn’t like the griminess of politics, but he’s doing what he has to do.”
Unlike many long-term incumbents, Shays received the majority of his money – $771,824 – from within the state, collecting less than 3 percent of his campaign money from New York and less than 1 percent from Washington, D.C., according to a Feb. 13report compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit research group that tracks money in politics.
Both candidates raised the majority of their campaign money from individual donors, not political action committees. According to Rothenberg, Shays received considerably less PAC money than his fellow colleagues in the Connecticut delegation.
“His number is way down, and he must not like to do PAC fundraising or must not do most of it. He’s really into looking like a reformer and squeaky clean, and he may have put limits on his PAC fundraising,” Rothenberg said.
Shays was one of the principal sponsors of the 2002 law that overhauled campaign finance rules.
Michael Sohn, Shays’ campaign manager, said fundraising efforts this cycle have consistently outpaced previous campaigns.
“He will continue to raise what he needs to in order to get his message out and correct misinformation about his record,” Sohn said.
Shays raised more than $916,000,or 69 percent of his total, from individual donors, while Farrell raised $498,168, or 85 percent of his total, according to filings with the election commission.
Among the individual donors who contributed to Shays’ campaign were several of Connecticut’s state representatives. Rep. Lile Gibbons, for example, contributed $3,200, Rep. John Hetherington gave $700 and Rep. David Hopper contributed $250.
Individual donors are allowed to contribute up to $2,100 for a primary race and the same maximum for the general election.
Although Shays doesn’t rely on PAC money to the extent many of his colleagues do, corporate PACs donated $400,564 to Shays as of Dec. 31. Finance and insurance interests topped the list, contributing more than $76,000 to his campaign through their PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Shays is a member of the Financial Services Committee and its Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee.
Purdue Pharma, a pharmaceutical company based in Stamford, is the top PAC contributor to Shays thus far, offering up more than $23,000 to the campaign, according to the center. It also contributed $5,200 to Farrell’s campaign.
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., contributed $10,000 to Shays’ campaign through his Leadership PAC, Keep Our Majority.
Shays’ campaign also received funds from PACs associated with tobacco companies such as Altria Group, the parent of Philip Morris, and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.
Sohn said it makes sense that a significant portion of Shays’ funds come from the financial and real estate industries. About one-third of the jobs in the district are in these industry. “Bottom Line, that’s where people in the fourth district work,” Sohn said.
In 2002, when Shays’ beat Farrell with 52 percent of the vote, his campaign spent $2,255,210 to Farrell’s $1,542,410, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In that year, Farrell received the majority of her funds from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and EMILY’s List, a national political action committee whose main goal is to elect pro-abortion rights female Democrats.
