Kasim Reed's campaign donations have a price

On New Year’s Eve, Mayor-elect Kasim Reed could celebrate knowing his campaign fund, even after spending $2.5 million to win the job, had a six-figure bank balance.

Much of that financial backing came from lawyers, contractors and consultants with money on their minds. Their support underscores the inherent tension in soliciting political donations from people looking to do a little business once their candidates take office.

“You’re asking people to be awfully gullible to believe all those contributions are being made out of civic interest and public pride,” said Atlanta attorney Emmet Bondurant.

Reed’s campaign was about $140,000 in the hole after he won the Dec. 1 runoff, primarily to repay personal loans from the candidate, said Dr. Larry Cooper, his campaign treasurer.

To pick up the slack, the mayor-elect threw a Dec. 15 debt-reduction reception at the 191 Club, a low-key event that drew perhaps 100 people.

Invitations went out to every donor who hadn’t hit the legal limit on contributions — $2,400 for the election and $1,200 for the runoff – said Kristin Oblander, Reed’s fund-raiser. “It wasn’t targeted to any one group,” she said.

Several financial advisers, no doubt aware the city would need help digging out of its pension and budget mess, chipped in that day.

So did concessionaires at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Management consultants, lawyers, construction and real estate interests all attended.

Two Atlanta department heads —airport manager Benjamin DeCosta and Human Resources Commissioner Benita Ransom — also wrote checks to Reed’s campaign Dec. 15. (Both announced their retirement within several weeks.)

The campaign ended 2009 with $105,000 more in the bank than it needed to pay back the loans, its reports show. Roughly $104,000 of that amount came in from Dec. 15 through the end of the month, indicating that post-runoff donations had already lifted the campaign out of debt before the fund-raiser.

Cooper said he had little to do in arranging the event at the 191 Club.

“I was focused on making sure there were no sequential checks,” he joked.

Sequentially numbered cashier’s checks were used in 1997 to launder illegal contributions to former Mayor Bill Campbell. Campbell served time in federal prison for tax evasion, and nearly a dozen of his aides and cronies were convicted of federal crimes.

Cooper said he understands concerns about potential influence by campaign contributors, although he has no strong feelings on the subject.

“It’s been going on since time immemorial,” he said.

“People who have an interest in the city economically are the ones who are most politically active.”

Last year, Common Cause Georgia asked Atlanta’s top mayoral candidates to endorse a so-called “pay-to-play” plan intended to dramatically reduce the influence of those interests.

The proposed pay-to-play ordinance, drafted by Bondurant, would limit a vendor’s campaign donations to $250 in the 12 months before receiving any city contract. Vendors also could not make political contributions exceeding that amount during the course of their work for the city.

Concessionaires who rent space from the city at the airport would also fall under the restrictions. Donations would be aggregated to include those from a company’s employees and the immediate families of its principals.

Why does Atlanta need a law like that?

“These contributions raise serious questions of conflict of interest,” Bondurant said, “of why they’re being made and whether or not as a result of contributions, some are receiving favorable treatment over others.”

None of the top four candidates for mayor embraced the idea.

Reed said last week that a $250 limit would put “ordinary citizens” at a clear disadvantage when running against more affluent candidates.

“Candidates who are not wealthy would never be able to spend time required to meet voters, communicate their ideas or develop their platforms,” Reed said in a prepared statement. “They would have to focus solely on raising money because of such an unreasonable restriction.”

So what will it take to get the city interested in addressing the issue?

“It may end up taking more scandals like the Bill Campbell scandals,” Bondurant said. “But I hope not.”

UPDATE: Last week, we noted that many Atlanta candidates’ 2009 campaign disclosures, including details of $1.1 million in donations to Reed, were missing from the city’s Web site. The municipal clerk’s office says it’s now hard at work to get all of the 2009 disclosures online. The reports have been taken offline for now, but copies are available for free at the clerk’s office in the interim.