Speaker seeks funds

Private meeting with lobbyists comes one day before Cargill’s new ethics proposal

Ron Jenkins

OKLAHOMA CITY — House Speaker Lance Cargill solicited funds from lobbyists at a private meeting one day before unveiling an ethics plan to promote openness in political fundraising.

Cargill, a Republican, said Thursday the gathering Tuesday at a public relations firm in northwest Oklahoma City was proper.

But some of his Democratic opponents said the gathering points up an environment in which lobbyists are pressured to contribute to political action committees controlled by House leaders who hold sway over legislation backed by lobbyists.

Funds were solicited for Republican political action committees or PACs at the meeting and for Cargill’s “100 Ideas Initiative,” which he characterizes as a nonpartisan effort to get ideas to help the state prosper.

He initially declined to reveal the names of donors to this initiative but said Thursday he will eventually provide this information.

A H Strategies, where the meeting was held, has worked on campaigns for Republican candidates for the state House and Senate.

Lobbyists were encouraged at the meeting to donate to several PACs, including Cargill’s “PAC to the Future,” the Republican State House Committee, the Republican Media Fund and the Republican Legal Fund.

Cargill said there was nothing unethical about this.

“Everybody out here asks lobbyists for money,” he told The Associated Press. “There’s nothing new about this.

“It wasn’t a shakedown, holding people over a barrel on legislation. We’re just being up front with people about the political goals that we have. That includes the 100 Ideas, that includes our legal fund.”

It is not unusual for legislative leaders, either Democrat or Republican, to raise campaign funds through political action committees.

But lobbyists said a meeting in which a speaker summons lobbyists to a public relations firm is unusual.

“I can’t remember anything like that in all my years at the Capitol,” said one longtime lobbyist, who attended the meeting and spoke on condition that his name not be used.

During the two-year tenure of Cargill’s predecessor, former Rep. Todd Hiett, R-Kellyville, Democrats accused Republicans of a “pay-for-play” scheme because committee chairmen formed PACs and raised money from people who had legislation before various House panels.

Those concerns were raised again on Wednesday when Cargill announced an ethics program that would bar political contributions at the Capitol, require monthly reports of contributions and ban a practice called “bundling,” where lobbyists collect several donations from different sources and then deliver the bundled checks to a candidate.

Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, said Cargill “talks about attorneys shaking down their clients, when in fact, it is the speaker and his cronies who have been shaking down large financial donations from special interests.”

Cargill said there was “no evidence” of a pay-to-play scheme last year and nothing like that is going on this year.

“Speakers in the past have raised money,” he said. “If I did it here in the Capitol, I would be hit on that. So I move it away from the Capitol and now people are going to criticize me for that. I mean, it’s ridiculous.

“I was at a restaurant the other night and lo and behold I ran into five Democrats who were eating big fat steaks at a fancy steakhouse in Oklahoma City. Was their vote for sale? Ask them; mine’s not.”