Colleges Get Pass to Lobby Lawmakers at Sporting Events, Watchdog Group Complains
By JEFFREY BRAINARD
Chronicle of Higher Education
March 14, 2007
Public universities seeking Congressionally earmarked money for campus projects frequently pump up their lobbying efforts, a watchdog group says, by providing free tickets to lawmakers and their staffs for championship games, like the NCAA Basketball Tournament that tips off on Thursday.
The gift giving is legal because public colleges, local governments, and Indian tribes are exempt from Congressional limits on gifts to members of Congress, says Americans for Prosperity, a Washington-based group that supports reducing federal spending and taxes. The group wants the loophole closed so that all lobbyists are treated equally.
While university officials and lawmakers are "hanging out together, you can bet the lobbyists won't be lobbying for tax relief -- they'll almost certainly be lobbying to get their hands on millions of our tax dollars so they can fund their wasteful pork-barrel projects," the group says in a statement on its Web site. "That's what we're calling the 'Real March Madness.'"
The organization's announcement, however, was long on gamesmanship but shorter on substance. It provided just one example of the practice it decried: In a video clip, posted on YouTube, that purports to show an anonymous former Congressional staff member for a Florida lawmaker saying that the University of Florida often invited him, his former boss, and other legislators and their staff members to sit in the university president's box during its home football games. The aide, whose face was obscured by darkness, said the point was to help move a "pet project through the legislative process and make sure it is in the final proposal."
Florida was a natural pick to highlight, said Ed Frank, a spokesman for the group, because the university won national titles in football this year and basketball last year, and again made this year's basketball tournament.
Florida officials offered a different take on the practice. "We don't give free tickets to anyone" to sit in the stands, said Stephen F. Orlando, a university spokesman. Seats in the president's box are by invitation only and so don't have a price tag. The university invites between 300 and 400 people, including alumni donors and state legislators, to sit in the box during home games. Under Florida law, the state legislators are required to pay the university an amount in lieu of a ticket and for food.
Another critic of Congressional earmarks, U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, is expected to hold a news conference on Thursday to release a ranked list of the federal lobbying expenditures reported by all 65 colleges in the tournament. (Florida came in 28th, with $1.4-million.)
Congressman Flake has proposed removing the exemption on gifts from public universities. He wants to add that provision to a bill (S 1), now before the House of Representatives and already approved this year by the Senate, banning gifts to lawmakers of any value, as a matter of law. The House recently instituted such a ban only as a matter of policy. Senate policy now allows gifts of up to $50 each and no more than $100 total a year from a single source.
It is true that colleges have spent an increasing amount of money on lobbying lawmakers, mostly for earmarks, although Congress instituted a one-year moratorium on earmarks this year. Academic institutions spent $62-million in 2003, more than double the amount they expended five years earlier (The Chronicle, October 22, 2004.) The payoff has been huge: The amount earmarked by Congress for academe more than sextupled, to $2-billion, from 1996 to 2003, the last year for which The Chronicle calculated a grand total.
