Monkey puzzles and lawmakers: make 'em take the pledge

Stephen Nash | Guest Columnist

It's a little mystery that Staunton voters have almost figured out, but not quite. Why are the Realtors, the health industry, the beer wholesalers and bankers, coal operators and electric utilities shoving all that cash into the Virginia legislature?

"Puzzles plus money produce the view that the money explains the puzzles," legal scholar Lawrence Lessig has written. "In a line: We don’t trust our government."

If he's talking about you, you have lots of company. Three-quarters of American voters - nearly equal numbers in both parties - are convinced that Congress is for sale. Given its record, the Virginia legislature can't make a credible claim to higher public confidence, either.

William Black, a former bank regulator, summarizes the ordinary citizen's street-level, tragic view when he writes that "a campaign contribution always generates the best return on investment." But your government's yours, not Dominion Energy's, nor Appalachian Power's. It's not for the benefit of the roster of corporate high-rollers that have given large amounts to this area's lawmakers -- although we keep electing them.

So the missing puzzle piece is this: if they're making monkeys of us and we know it, what can we do about it? And you can find the answer in Roanoke.

Start here: More than five dozen House of Delegates candidates so far, mostly Democrats, have signed a pledge that they'll refuse to accept campaign cash from Appalachian Power and Dominion Energy, the two state-regulated electric power monopolies. Among them: the Staunton-area candidates Michele Edwards (D-20) and Angela Lynn (D-25).

But Roanoke Democrat Sam Rasoul, a 35-year-old management consultant who has served in the House of Delegates since 2014, has gone even further. He has announced that he'll refuse campaign donations not only from Dominion and Appalachian, but any "gifts" above $5,000 from anyone. In fact, he will take no more campaign cash at all from special-interest PACS and corporations.

Rasoul's a Democrat, but "...it is conservatives who should be leading the fight for campaign-finance reform,” Richard Painter of the University of Minnesota Law School has written. “Why should conservative voters care? First, big money in politics encourages big government. . . . When politicians are dependent on campaign money from contractors and lobbyists, they’re incapable of holding spending programs to account.”

So whether you're conservative, green, libertarian or liberal, here's the question: can your legislator explain why it's okay to accept "donations" from the two power companies -- and other big corporate interests -- and still cast votes on legislation that affects not only their profits, but also our electric bills and, crucially, our environment?

According to the non-profit, non-partisan Virginia Public Access Project, Del. Dickie Bell (R-Staunton), got $10,250 in campaign cash from Dominion Energy - his third-highest donor. Del. Ben Cline (R-Amherst) has gotten $15,000 from Dominion and $10,500 from Appalachian Power. Del. Steve Landes (R-Weyers Cave), has gotten $24,000 in campaign cash from Dominion, and State Sen. Emmett Hanger (R-Mount Solon), $23,500.

Meanwhile, those same public servants who took Dominion's money have voted on countless Dominion-related bills, listened to the pitches of the sturdy corps of Dominion lobbyists, and then handed the company a lengthening series of legislative home runs worth hundreds of millions of dollars - perhaps a billion or two by some estimates.

Don't accept their easy answer: "I need the money to get elected." Vermont, Connecticut and conservative Arizona have figured that out, with voluntary donation limits and public financing for candidates. Is your state senator or delegate pushing, noisily, for that? Why not?

This isn't a partisan issue. In fact, Dominion has given just over $7.4 million to legislators of both parties since 2006 - $826,000 in 2016-17 alone. It is Virginia's top corporate donor. Its biggest recipient is a Democrat, though the Republicans have taken in more, over all.

So ask each of your legislators and candidates: Will you pledge to reject that kind of campaign cash from now on? Can you at least decline donations from the state-regulated utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power? If you think it's okay to accept their money, then will you pledge to abstain from voting on legislation involving those interests?

And get 'em on the record. We'd all like to know.

Stephen Nash is the author of Virginia Climate Fever — How Climate Change Will Transform Our Cities, Shorelines and Forests, published by the University of Virginia Press, as well as the forthcoming Grand Canyon for Sale: Public Lands and Private Interests in the Era of Climate Change. He is an environmental journalist and a senior research scholar at University of Richmond. Write him at snash33@icloud.com.