A look at the campaign finance balance sheet for Rep. Dean Heller

With a national debt of $9 trillion, I guess Congressman Dean Heller’s $370,000 campaign debt isn’t particularly noteworthy.

I suppose nobody cares he’s raised nearly $1 million but still owes on his 2006 election. Even the people he hasn’t paid don’t seem to care. They are carrying his debt as an interest free loan until he gets around to paying them.

Isn’t Heller supposed to be a fiscally conservative Republican?

His spokesman Stewart Bybee said, “Congressman Heller has paid a portion of his debt every month and plans to continue to do so. It is not uncommon for campaigns to take a few years to pay down debt. The congressman is not the first elected official from Nevada to carry campaign debt, nor will he be the last.”

Ah, the old “everybody does it” defense.

However, Bybee is correct. Carrying debt isn’t unusual. Perhaps it should be, but it isn’t.

Of the three Nevada house members, all up for election this year, Heller is the only one who hasn’t paid his debts.

Rep. Jon Porter, also a Republican, loaned himself $150,000 when he ran in 2000 and lost. He paid off his vendors and carried his loan until recently, when he raised the money to pay himself back. He started the year with zero debt, said his spokesman Matt Leffingwell.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, the Democrat of the bunch and a talented fundraiser, keeps current with her bills. She had debt in 1998, the first time she ran, and retired it that same year, said her spokesman David Cherry. Since then, she’s paid her bills during the election cycle.

So the lone Democrat doesn’t spend more than she raises.

Porter did the honorable thing and dipped into his own pockets to pay his campaign bills.

Heller lets the debt linger for two years.

The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks presidential and congressional fundraising, doesn’t have any recommended deadlines for debt retirement and agreed that Heller’s situation was not unusual.

Center spokesman Massie Ritsch said, “At some point, lingering debt becomes problematic since it becomes an illegal corporate subsidy for a campaign since generally the money is owed to companies that have provided services, not individuals.”

But Ritsch agreed with me (who pays her bills in full every month) that “if they’re not able to balance their own books, you can reasonably ask if they should be entrusted to balance the country’s debt.”

Heller is a freshman. If he should lose in 2008 (his Democratic challenger Jill Derby has no debt yet), he’ll find he might have to dip into his personal money to pay any debt.

“Incumbents don’t have any trouble raising money or paying off debts,” Ritsch said. “The difficulty is when you lose.”

So why doesn’t Heller pay up?

If he’s like most freshmen congressmen, the first election is the one with the most vulnerability. Saying he has raised $981,000 sounds far more threatening than saying he has $611,000, especially when Derby has raised $144,000. It’s a form of intimidation to report big numbers.

The national political committees carry millions in debt, and vendors get stiffed on a regular basis. But they might not complain because they figure they’ll get other business that might not be campaign related. Or they might get that priceless “access” down the road when they need it.

Heller’s report with the Federal Election Commission said his debt from the 2006 election is owed primarily to consultants, lawyers, advertisers and researchers. These names are probably familiar to you: Kummer Kaempfer Bonner ($9,932), R&R Partners ($9,034), Weeks and Co. ($37,060), Autumn Productions ($137,050), November Inc. ($116,756) and Foundations Inc. ($19,500). Even spokesman Bybee’s salary of $5,000 is listed as a debt.

If the state campaign finance system required reporting of debt and identifying to whom the money is owed (which it does not), we would be horrified to see unpaid debt. And because disclosure is not required, more funny business goes undetected, which is exactly how legislators like it.

For some candidates, campaign money is akin to play money. And when they’re elected, the same philosophy seems to apply to the national budget. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a $9 trillion debt.

Sure, everybody does it, but maybe they shouldn’t.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.