Boehner has wrangled more than $1 million from his Ohio colleagues. | AP Photos/Getty House GOP cracks down on dues

House Republicans, so worried that a swelling cash deficit will keep them from making big gains this November, have begun cracking down on dozens of lawmakers who haven’t paid dues crucial to the party’s campaign accounts. It’s reached the point that Speaker John Boehner has dispatched his own team to twist some of the stragglers’ arms.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House campaign arm, is well behind its Democratic counterpart in fundraising, to the tune of $22 million so far. And many GOP outside groups, who could in theory compensate for the deficit, are more interested in channeling their resources toward retaking the Senate than defending the House.


That’s put increased pressure on Republicans to get dues from lawmakers. The NRCC had earlier announced the formation of a task force geared toward getting members to pay up. But behind the scenes, Boehner has launched his own effort — sending a trio of members close to him to press the procrastinators to fork over cash. They’ve been poring over NRCC dues sheets, calling truant members, tracking them down in hallways and otherwise pressuring them to open their wallets. Boehner himself has wrangled more than $1 million from his colleagues in the Ohio delegation.

( Also on POLITICO: The summer sideshow)

An official familiar with the overall push said about 120 of the 234 members of the GOP Conference paid their dues in full by the end of June, supplying the NRCC with more than $12 million. But there are about 100 members who have paid only part of what they owe, or nothing at all — leaving potentially millions of dollars still on the table.

Dues are a critical component of a campaign committee’s income. The fees are based on seniority, so lawmakers with the longest tenure and service on the most sought-after congressional panels are expected to pay the lion’s share. The lowest figure is $32,500 and runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Particularly frustrating to some higher-ups is that some of the party’s most senior members — those who often have the fullest campaign treasuries — have been AWOL on dues. They include House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), a GOP aide said. Other delinquents include Kansas Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Florida Reps. Dennis Ross and Ander Crenshaw and Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany.

Shuster said in an interview that he would be “fully paid” by the time of the election, while a Jenkins spokesman said the congresswoman was “on pace” to fulfilling what she owes. Spokesmen for the others either declined to comment or did not respond to requests.

( Also on POLITICO: Texas GOP to Obama: Don't mess with us)

There is no set deadline for members to pay up, though they have to pay within each election cycle. But, with the fall campaign drawing closer, party strategists say they’d like the money to come in sooner rather than later. For those who don’t shell out by the end of the cycle, there could be consequences. They could lose the ability to use NRCC facilities, such as fundraising call centers.

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, a Boehner ally and former NRCC chairman, said the House speaker is concerned about dues to the point that “he thinks we are risking our majority for not giving our best effort.”

“I think he thinks the conditions are pretty ripe for us,” Cole said. “We think we have the opportunity to pick up seats. But if you go into an election with a major cash disparity, then we run the risk of losing the majority that really shouldn’t be in jeopardy. That’s what he’s said, and I agree with him 100 percent.”

Asked about Cole’s comments, Cory Fritz, a Boehner spokesman, said, “Speaker Boehner believes House Republicans have a real opportunity to win a larger House majority in 2014. He’s working closely with members and the NRCC to counter the Obama fundraising machine and provide our candidates with the resources they need.”

On Thursday morning at the Capitol Hill Club, the NRCC held a special reception to thank members who had met their payment obligations. Boehner, one of the event’s headliners, had a simple message for the audience: In life, 80 percent of the product comes from the 20 percent of the people who do the work.

“It was his way of recognizing the people doing the work to keep the majority in the House,” one person who attended the event said. “It was a very positive atmosphere, because it was for people who paid. But what’s left unspoken is, there are going to be consequences for those who don’t.”

Through the end of May, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had outraised the NRCC $113 million to $91 million. The gap is likely to widen in the coming weeks as Democrats rake in big bucks in the wake of Boehner’s lawsuit against the president over the use of executive actions.

That Republicans are behind in the cash dash may seem surprising given that the House chamber is the epicenter of GOP power. But party strategists say there are several reasons for the predicament.

President Barack Obama is staking out a far more aggressive role in raising money for House Democrats than he did during the last midterm election, when he held eight fundraisers for them. So far this cycle, Obama has hosted 15 fundraisers for the DCCC. He will hold another one in Silicon Valley on July 23.

Other Republicans credit Democrats with building up a powerful digital fundraising program that has allowed them to cultivate financial support from an army of low-dollar contributors who give amounts of less than $200. While the Democratic committee has raised $46 million from such small donors, the NRCC has raised just $17 million from them.

With a political environment that’s in the Republican Party’s favor, many analysts predict the GOP will pick up House seats this fall. But GOP lawmakers and strategists say the party cannot be complacent about the funding gap because it’s not just 2014 that’s at stake.

With conditions this positive, they argue, Republicans need to exploit the opportunity to add as many seats as possible ahead of a 2016 presidential election that could favor Democrats.

“The current cash deficit is substantial across the board and will severely impact our ability to maximize the environment and win the seats we need for future cycles,” said Brian Walsh, a former NRCC political director. “We’d always rather have a wind at our backs than a cash advantage, but this deficit is a real problem and it’s our great candidates that will suffer.”

The impact of the overall money gap on the election will become clearer as Labor Day approaches and both parties begin unloading their war chests on campaign ads that will air in races across the country.

For now, Democrats look primed to spend more money and to compete in more races. The Democratic House committee has reserved $43.5 million for TV ad time across 36 districts, while its GOP counterpart has booked $30 million in 26 districts.

“Where there are differences between the DCCC and NRCC means that we can compete in fewer [media] markets, fewer individual races,” said Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, the NRCC’s former chairman.

The Democratic ad buy is aimed at defending the party’s most jeopardized seats, while also trying to chip away at vulnerable Republican ones. Of the 36 districts the party is investing in, 19 are occupied by Democrats and 17 by Republicans.

“We do have a strategic advantage right now, having been able to reserve more money in more seats,” said DCCC Chairman Steve Israel of New York.

If the NRCC has a plan for narrowing the gap — aside from cracking down on members to pay dues — it isn’t saying.

A committee spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato, deflected questions about the organization’s finances, saying only that House Republicans had the support of “Americans coast to coast who don’t want to give the president a blank check his last two years in office.”

Evening the playing field, some Republicans say, will most likely fall on the shoulders of friendly cash-flush outside groups. But it’s unclear if that will happen.

A spokesman for American Crossroads, a prominent, Karl Rove-founded group, said it would be spending most of its resources on the Senate, which Republicans are increasingly confident they can snag from the Democrats. Spokespersons for two other prominent Republican groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Koch brothers-linked Americans for Prosperity, declined to say how they would be distributing resources.

If anything, it’s Democrats who look poised to benefit from outside groups. House Majority PAC, a super PAC devoted to helping Democrats win control of the House, announced Thursday that it had reserved $20 million in congressional districts across the country. No Republican outside group has announced a plan remotely close to that investment.

That does little to assuage the worries of Democrats, who remember all too well when Republican groups plowed millions of dollars into House races during the final days of the 2010 midterms. That year, Republicans netted 63 seats and captured the House majority.

“The only thing that continues to make me toss and turn at night are the Republican super PACs,” Israel said. “They have outsourced to Republican super PACs, and I see it as kind of the death star hovering in space waiting to try to vaporize our candidates. Our fundraising strength gives us the strategic benefit, but I don’t think we can get complacent.”