NRA Steps Up GOP Donations in Strategy Shift

WASHINGTON — Fearing that Americans’ gun rights hinge on the November elections, the National Rifle Assn. has donated more than $550,000 to Republican Party committees, putting it for the first time among the GOP’s top five givers of unregulated “soft money.”

Traditionally, the NRA’s political strategy has emphasized weighing in on individual congressional candidates who will stand strong against gun control.

But with the House of Representatives up for grabs this year as well as the White House--and the momentum behind gun-control measures gaining strength in the wake of last year’s Columbine High School shootings--the huge gun lobby has shifted some of its formidable financial weight to the organizations working to elect Republicans nationwide.

With this year’s elections still months away, the NRA’s contributions to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee already are more than six times greater than the group’s soft-money donations to the GOP in the entire 1996 presidential election cycle.

So far the NRA ranks fourth--up from 32nd in 1998--in giving to Republican committees, according to a computer analysis by the Springfield, Va.-based Campaign Study Group of the latest information available from the Federal Election Commission. The figures represent donations to the RNC and NRSC through February and contributions to the NRCC through the end of last year.

NRA spokesman Bill Powers said he did not find “anything particularly unusual” about the marked increase in his group’s big-money donations to the GOP.

But Grover Norquist, who as president of Americans for Tax Reform is a key mover in the Republican Party’s conservative wing, said the NRA’s increased donations to the GOP reflect how worried the group’s members are about the growing momentum for gun control, particularly among Democrats.

“Every American gun owner should know their rights will be lost if Al Gore and a Democratic Congress are elected,” Norquist said.

Already, the NRA has lost some key battles in the states. Maryland’s House of Delegates voted Monday, joining the state Senate, to require built-in locks for all new handguns sold in the state. And on Tuesday, Massachusetts began enforcing the nation’s toughest gun rules, banning the sale of cheap handguns and requiring child-proof safety devices on all handguns sold in the state.

As support for gun control has grown, however, so has the NRA’s membership. The organization has attracted half a million new members over the last year to bring its total to 3.4 million, Powers said, and donations to the group are headed for record levels. Last year, the political arm of the NRA raised $25 million, up about $5 million over its annual average, and donations are flowing even faster this year, he added.

“At times of greater threat in the political climate--as we’ve certainly seen over recent months--more folks tend to be energized,” Powers said.

For the Republican Party, the NRA’s new generosity could entail a degree of risk; some voters might be less likely to vote for Republican candidates if they believe the GOP is beholden to the gun lobby.

The NRA’s giving surge, along with a dramatic spike in contributions to anti-gun groups, seems certain to make gun control a key issue in this year’s elections. Indeed, in a recent CBS poll, 8% of respondents cited guns as the “single most important problem” facing the country; only education, cited by 9% of respondents, ranked higher.

Vice President Al Gore already has tried to highlight his commitment to gun control while pointing to his GOP opponent George W. Bush’s more pro-NRA record. Some Republican analysts have urged Bush to emphasize his differences with the NRA, as he did when he criticized NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre for accusing President Clinton of being “willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda.”

Recent public opinion polls show that two-thirds of Americans think controlling access to guns is more important than the right to have them. Support for gun control increased after the Columbine shootings almost a year ago and has remained stable since then, said Andy Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an independent polling firm.

Among Republican women--expected to be a pivotal constituency in the presidential race--support for gun control has increased 24% since late 1993. Seventy-two percent of GOP women now say they favor gun control--compared with 37% of Republican men--a proportion equal to that of gun-control supporters among Democratic men and a level almost as high as the 78% of Democratic women, according to the Pew organization.

The increasing public pressure for further regulation of firearms also has given gun-control advocates acccess to unprecedented funds to spend in support of congressional candidates committed to gun control.

“In the past couple of election cycles, we spent about $200,000 from our political action committee. This time we’re going to spend $2 million,” said Joe Sudbay, director of state legislation for Handgun Control Inc., a Washington-based advocacy group.

Handgun Control plans to spend the bulk of its political money on independent expenditures--mostly commercials--in key races, often suburban districts where gun control is an issue that separates candidates.

Traditionally, the NRA has spent the bulk of its campaign money on independent expenditures. In 1998, the NRA spent $2.3 million, mostly on ads. It spent more than $100,000 for each of five candidates and more than $10,000 each for 33 other candidates. The vast majority, but not all, of the NRA-supported candidates were Republicans.

The NRA also gave $350,000 in soft money--largely unregulated and unlimited campaign contributions by individuals, corporations and labor unions to political party campaign committees--to Republican Party groups that year, up from $87,725 two years earlier. The organization gave no soft money during the 1992 election cycle.

Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, an educational organization that closely monitors the NRA, believes the group’s altered strategy reflects its threatened position within the Republican Party.

“The NRA is trying to prove its worth not just to its membership and pro-gun activists but to the traditional conservative coalition,” Sugarmann said. “The NRA seems like an albatross. The world has changed and the NRA hasn’t. They want to prove they can still motivate the grass roots and win elections.”

Congressional insiders said it’s easy to explain the shift in the NRA’s strategy to increasing its support for GOP committees, which promote the election of Republicans, rather than focusing on individual candidates.

“With Gore running on a platform of gun registration, and with the Democratic leadership in the House calling for further restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights, it’s left [the NRA] no option,” said a GOP leadership aide, who spoke on the condition that he not be named. “The Democratic Party has put out a no welcome sign for people who want to bear arms.”

In contrast, the GOP leadership has proved its allegiance to gun rights.

Congress has not approved a major gun-control bill since Republicans took control of the House and Senate in 1995. A handful of modest measures were passed by the Senate last year, shortly after 15 people were killed in the shooting rampage in Littleton, Colo. But that legislation was derailed in the House.

Yet gun control is not a strictly partisan issue. The NRA counts more than 40 Democrats in Congress among its loyalists.

In the presidential contest, presumptive GOP nominee Bush has been disinclined to emphasize his like-mindedness with the NRA, but the NRA is not shy about showing its preference for the Texas governor, who gave Texans the right to carry concealed firearms for the first time in 125 years.

The intensity of the NRA’s support for Bush was abundantly clear in a fund-raising letter from LaPierre.

“In short, Al Gore never met a gun-control proposal he didn’t like--while Gov. Bush has staked out just the opposite position,” his letter said. LaPierre praised Bush for signing the concealed weapon law, adding that he also “signed Texas legislation which bans frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers--lawsuits which anti-gun politicians are using in an effort to bankrupt the American firarms industry.”

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The NRA, GOP and Soft Money

* Donations this election

The NRA ranks fourth among the top soft-money donors to Republicaan Party committees in this election cycle:

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1. Philip Morris Cos.: $1,017,561

2. AT&T; Corp.: 679,300

3. United Parcel Service 618,059

4. National Rifle Assn. 553,100

5. Dominion Resources/Virginia Power 537,378

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* Comparing donations in other elections

The NRA has dramatically increased its soft-money giving to the GOP over recent election cycles:

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These figures include the most recent data available from the Federal Election Commission. The Republican National Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee have filed donor information through February, and the National Republican Congressional Committee has filed through December.

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SOURCE: Campaign Study Group