“Such as”, asked Steny Hoyer.
I shrugged at him and smiled. Steny was a leading Democrat. “Such as my smiling face handing over the check while the cameras are clicking. What’s more important, that the charity get the money, or that a Republican not get credit? Hmmm? Something to think about, isn’t it.”
There was considerable murmuring about that! However, it wasn’t all bad. Kweisi Mfume, who represented one of the poorest inner city districts in Baltimore, said, “I don’t care if your face is on the check! The people in my district need money for health care and clinics, and they don’t care where it comes from. Are you serious?” He had a rebellious look on his face, and I recalled that he and Schaefer had their differences about this.
I looked him in the eye and said, “Yes. How much are we talking about?”
“How about twenty thousand for a clinic in Pimlico?”
“Fifteen,” I countered, “but it is in matching funds. You scrape up fifteen elsewhere, anywhere, and I’ll cough up another fifteen. Deal?”
“Make it twenty, and you get to stand there and cut the ribbon,” he pushed.
“Only if the Sun and the television stations cover it,” I replied.
“Deal!”
You could see wheels whirling in people’s heads about this. I knew some wouldn’t want it, if I was attached, and some either wouldn’t care, or would be happy to see me (mostly the other Republicans.) Over the next ten minutes, I got requests for quite a bit more, again, all for various clinics and fire/emergency units.
“Just how much are you planning on donating?” asked the Governor.
I thought about it for a moment. “I’ve been giving about two hundred grand to various charities around my district for years, simply because it’s where I live. If we expand that same amount to the rest of the state… maybe two million. Seem fair?”
“Every year?” asked an incredulous Steny Hoyer.
“Well, as long as the economy holds up, so maybe you Democrats should vote Republican and help us with the economy,” I said, smiling.
That earned me a number of laughs, and a lot of thoughtful looks from the others. More than a few people asked me about things, and then said, “I’ll hold you to that!” which I replied to in kind.
By the end of the dinner, we got invited to several dinner parties by the others, including one at the Governor’s Mansion in Annapolis. We politely accepted that one, and promised to check our schedules on all the others. It is entirely possible to spend damn near every lunch and dinner eating somewhere on someone else’s’ dime, although how much you will accomplish is debatable at best. You’d better be a sparkling conversationalist at the least! As for Governor Schaefer, well, Don Schaefer was the Maryland politician of our generation, and it didn’t matter that he was a Democrat; if you wanted to do something political in Maryland you made sure you played nice with Don Schaefer, and at the least didn’t piss the man off.
Otherwise, however, 1991 passed along without much excitement. Unfortunately for George Bush, the economy began swirling around the bowl. In the early spring, following the American victory in the Gulf (okay, Coalition victory, but really, who cares!?) the President had approval ratings in the 90 % range. Unfortunately this proved the high point of his presidency. By the summer the economy was beginning to tank seriously. A combination of higher oil prices due to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, massive government deficits, and a general decline in the housing market combined to really slow the economy.
To a certain extent my holdings in the Buckman Group weren’t affected. When I had been elected, I had to place my financial assets into a ‘blind trust’, a trust where the trustee had full control of the assets and I had no legal ability to modify the investments. In theory, this prohibited me from changing my investments to benefit from any knowledge of what I was doing in my public life. I was not to communicate with the trustee other than to learn how the cumulative investment was doing.
In practice, the blind trust is one of the weakest methods of insuring fiscal independence. The trustee has to be somebody known and trusted by the owner of the trust. My trustee was hired by John Steiner, my long time friend and lawyer. Since I was such good friends with John it was not unexpected that we would talk frequently. As knowledgeable men of the world, with interests in politics and economics, it would be expected that we would have frequent conversations over market trends. However, since nothing we ever said in these private and unrecorded conversations could be construed to be trading instructions, neither of us was in breach of our fiduciary duties. Likewise, while I never talked to the trustee, it was not out of the realm of possibility that John would talk to him, since they probably did other business together as well.
Realistically, I wouldn’t have given him any trading instructions in any case. My assets were predominately in the form of Buckman Group stock. If, however, John was to pass along any of my comments and insights to other friends, such as those involved in the management of the Buckman Group, that was to be expected. It wasn’t even a case of insider trading.
The practical effect was that the Buckman Group focused even more closely on computer and networking companies, as the ‘Information Superhighway’ began to be built. On the rest of the market, we began betting on a recession based economy. I just reminded them of my trading philosophy that there was just as much money to be made on the downside as there was on the upside. Jake Junior and Missy took the bit in their teeth and ran with it.
This was an amazing part of being a Congressman. If I was still with the Buckman Group and pulled this shit, I’d be doing time at Club Fed for insider trading. As a Congressman, the rules simply didn’t apply to me. At least I kept up the semblance of innocence; when LBJ had been President, he had a phone in his desk with a direct line to his stockbroker.
On my weekends home I made a deal with Marilyn to spend at least one day with her and the kids as just a regular dad. I would also usually do a pancake supper or chicken-and-biscuit dinner somewhere in the district. It kept my face out there and allowed me to make an appropriate charitable donation to the local firehouse or ambulance squad. I wasn’t buying votes, at least not technically. My donations weren’t really out of line with what I had been giving before I got into politics, however, they were a lot more high profile. I even had a big fake check made up out of plastic, like a white board, where I could write an amount and a name on it, and pose for pictures. Afterwards, I would stick the fake check back in the car and give them a real check.
On the plus side I liked pancakes and chicken-and-biscuits. Being a zillionaire meant I didn’t have to spend my entire life begging for money. Yes, I kept a ‘tip jar’ with me for campaign donations, but I didn’t have to sell myself body and soul to stay in office. I did, however, have to call people and visit around the district. If somebody I knew had a kid who got married, I had to send a card with a check to the happy couple. If somebody died, I had to show up for the viewing or the funeral. Brewster stayed in touch with Marty and me (for a fee, of course) and made sure I got a daily list of calls I had to make, to keep in touch back home. It was a lot like being a salesman.
There’s a lot of routine stuff to being a Congressman. Some of this was the relatively mundane business of finding out why the Social Security check was late in the mail. Other times it became more personal. For instance, I learned on my first go-around that you can get a flag that has been flown over the Capitol building. Just write your Congressman or Senator and he can arrange it. The mundane becomes very personal in a hurry — a veteran dies in my district, I pay for the flag out of my own pocket, and if somebody dies in combat, I damn well better call the family and show up at the funeral! Thankfully the Gulf War wasn’t all that bloody.