Access That Only Money Can Purchase

Let’s just state this point right off the bat, lest anyone think we’ve gone off the political deep end: There is nothing wrong or illegal about campaign contributions, whether they come from individuals or corporations, unions or businesses, conservatives or liberals.

That being said, politicians should be very wary about accepting contributions and always be cognizant of even the appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest.

An odorous whiff this week has begun to hang around Stafford County Republican Bill Howell, speaker of the House of Delegates, and it’s a disturbing tale of money, influence and access, as uncovered by The Washington Post.

Howell, arguable the second-most powerful politician in Virginia after Gov. Bob McDonnell, is personally shepherding legislation through the General Assembly, billing it as “tort reform.”

But it’s far from something as needed as tort reform; it has the appearance of Big Business buying access to a powerful politician.

The company is Crown Cork & Seal, a Fortune 500 company based in Philadelphia with about 300 workers in Virginia. In 1963, Crown Cork decided it wanted to be in the asbestos insulation business and bought a small company for $7 million.

In later years, research proved a link between asbestos and illnesses such as cancer. Lawsuits were filed and one company after another was saddled with liability reaching into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Crown Cork has been trying desparately to find legal cover from would-be claimants, and through the American Legislative Exchange Council, it has. ALEC is a conservative business group that charges companies thousands of dollars in dues that, in turn, give executives the opportunity to hobnob with powerful politicians across the nation, whose dues are only $50 ... total.

Speaker Howell is a member of ALEC and, for the past three Assembly sessions, has been trying to get a bill, written by ALEC staff, passed that would give Crown Cork the cover it so desperately wants.

In the 2008 and 2009 sessions, the legislation famously flamed out, because legislators saw it for what it was: a favor for one company, and one company alone. The precedent set by the bill’s approval would have been horrific.

Well, since the bill’s defeat in 2009, the speaker and Crown Cork have gone to work. The speaker replaced several bill foes on the committee that killed the legislation in years past with friends of his. Crown Cork opened up its checkbook — its extremely fat checkbook — and started making contributions to legislators. Since 2007, the company’s donations have totaled more than $100,000.

As a result of the speaker’s strong-arm tactics and eagerness to do a favor for a corporate buddy and that corporation’s deep financial pockets, the Crown Cork legislation has now passed the House by the narrowest of margins, 49 votes in favor to 48 against, on its way to the State Senate for its consideration.

The speaker has invested much of his political capital in this legislation and has gone to great lengths to ensure its passage, perhaps because he was ALEC’s national chairman last year.

From having his minions deliver thinly veiled threats to opponents and stacking the committee in favor of the legislation, no action seems to be off the table for Speaker Howell.

This should not be how public servants in the Commonwealth of Virginia do business. Sadly, though, in the speaker’s case, it is how politicians work.