Major League Baseball likes Democrats more than Republicans
Posted by: Richie Rich in Baseball Business, Bud Selig, Politics
A while back, Home Run Derby told you the favorite MLB teams of the 2008 Presidential Candidates.
Ever wonder who Major League Baseball wants to win in the political arena?
Simple answer: Democrats.
How do we know? Well … since 2001, Major League Baseball has a Political Action Committee (PAC). So far as I can tell, MLB is the only Professional Sports League to have a PAC - why am I not surprised?
Considering how often MLB gets dragged into Congressional hearings lately, it makes perfect sense that MLB would want to have lined the pockets and greased the palms of some Senators and Representatives. Baseball has given to a number of Candidates over the 21st Century. Some notables …
- $1,000 to Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
- $6,500 to Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
- $13,000 to Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
- $22,500 to Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)
- $7,500 to Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)
- $9,500 to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
- $10,000 to Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD)
- $25,000 to Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
Let’s see how MLB has doled out that PAC money by Party over the past four Federal Election Cycles.
MLB PAC Contributions
| Party | 2002 | 2004 | 2006 | 2008 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democrat $ | $66,000 | $114,288 | $95,302 | $64,500 | $340,090 |
| Democrat # | 37 | 51 | 39 | 29 | 156 |
| Average | $1,784 | $2,241 | $2,444 | $2,224 | $2,180 |
| Republican $ | $42,000 | $102,500 | $82,636 | $28,000 | $255,136 |
| Republican # | 28 | 47 | 35 | 20 | 130 |
| Average | $1,500 | $2,181 | $2,361 | $1,400 | $1,963 |
Wow. Every election cycle since its inception, MLB’s PAC has given more to Democratic candidates than Republican ones. And considering the 70/30 discrepancy in the 2008 cycle … it seems that MLB wants to help the Democrats keep their majorities in the Senate and House for 2009 and beyond. Unless the MLB has plans to flood Republican coffers in the next six months.
The PAC (and MLB before it) has contributed $500,000 (spilt almost equally) to both Parties’ National Committees over the past decade, which is to be expected - an organization as big as MLB wouldn’t want to cheese off an entire political party. (sources: OpenSecrets.org)
Back in 2001 when MLB Commissioner Bud Selig was looking to contract (remove) two teams (the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos) out of MLB, the Senate Judiciary Committee looked into revoking MLB’s antitrust exemption. Selig, ever the shrewd businessman, formed MLB PAC - to help advance MLB’s agenda … by way of political contributions to individual candidates.
Rep. John Conyers, who threatened such legislation in 2001, has since taken $15,000 from MLB’s PAC over the past eight years. Shhhh.
With regard to contraction, it didn’t work - the Expos are now the Washington Nationals and have a brand new stadium in D.C. and the Twins are still in Minnesota … with a new stadium being built while MLB still has its antitrust exemption. Then again … maybe it did work.
But in the past few years, MLB has been called before congress to testify about Performance Enhancing Drugs in Baseball. It sure would be nice if a few members of the current House Committee on Oversight and Govermental Reform had some MLB dollars in their war chests before those hearings … oh wait - they do. Including $3,000 to Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and $4,000 to the Committee’s ranking Republican, Tom Davis (R-VA).
MLB PAC - COGR Contributions
| Candidate | Party | 2002 | 2004 | 2006 | 2008 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waxman, Henry A | D-CA | $1,000 | $2,000 | $3,000 | ||
| Davis, Tom | R-VA | $2,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 | $4,000 | |
| Towns, Edolphus | D-NY | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 | $4,000 |
| Sarbanes, Paul S | D-MD | $2,500 | $2,500 | |||
| Cannon, Chris | R-UT | $1,000 | $1,000 | $2,000 | ||
| Cummings, Elijah E | D-MD | $1,000 | $1,000 | |||
| Norton, Eleanor Holmes | D-DC | $1,000 | $1,000 | |||
| Grand Total | $1,000 | $8,500 | $6,000 | $2,000 | $17,500 |
Conflict of interest, anyone?
I suppose Congresswoman Holmes-Norton doesn’t really count, seeing as she doesn’t have a vote as the representative from the District of Columbia. You probably remember her from The Colbert Report - but more recently, she’s the one who told Roger Clemens “I’m sure you’re going to heaven” during the Mitchell Report hearings this past February.
So who funds the MLB’s PAC? Well, it’s basically the MLB Team Owners and Chairmen (and heck, even some of their family members). People you would expect to be Republicans - considering their business backgrounds and how much money they have in their pockets.
Interestingly, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has never contributed to MLB’s PAC. But he’s a pretty active political donor in his own right.
Over the past 12 years, Selig has contributed over $85,000 to political candidates and organizations - 96% to Democrats. Mostly in the form of $70,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $6,600 to his good friend, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd.
Kinda makes sense that the MLB’s PAC might lean a little to the Left with that information, now doesn’t it?
Insert your “I knew Bud Selig was a Jackass” comments below.
Entries (RSS)
April 18th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Maybe there’s a reason Democrats never mention a windfall profits tax associated baseball. Or, good forbid, they might even begin to compare Player pay with CEO pay.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:50 am
OK, here’s a possible explanation for the PAC’s imbalance, although I have no idea if these patterns are reflected in the actual donations.
14 teams are in states where both Senators are Democrats.
4 teams are in states where both Senators are Republicans.
10 teams are in states with 1 of each.
When you eliminate duplicates because of multiple teams in the same state, the teams are represented by 22 Democratic senators and only 12 Republican ones.
I’m not going to run the numbers on the House, but since teams tend to be located in large cities and large cities tend to have Democratic Congressmen, I think it’s likely that the imbalance is as large or larger.
Therefore, if the PAC tended toward supporting incumbents representing the areas where teams are located–regardless of ideology–it would give a majority of its funds to Democrats.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Eric -
That makes some sense, but MLB PAC gave about 63% of its Senatorial contributions to candidates from states where there are no baseball teams.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am
But I thought rich fat cats (MLB Owners) all supported the GOP!?
April 18th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Jocks - unless they are beholden to identity politics - tend to be Republicans or centrist Dems. The life lessons of playing competitive team sports make it pretty inevitable.
On the other hand, it shouldn’t be that shocking that the kind of dweebs who ulimately end up owning sports franchises would have their world view shaped differently. I’m not altogether sure why anyone is still under the illusion that the political divide in this country is organized around the haves vs. the have nots. 1
It may be the case in terms of rhetoric but certainly not in reality.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
From the headline I had one theory, but it may not play out from the details, but … Big Baseball demands big bucks to build stadiums.
Could it be they want to get favors from Democrats for corporate welfare to build urban stadiums in Democratic towns? (for the record, I support many of them, including Miller park and the new Twins stadium).
In Mpls, the younger Polhad joined several prominent wealthy Minnesota Democrats, taking out ads that call for higher taxes overall.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Dave, I thought of that several times.
If Democrats in Congress can go after Big Oil and CEO pay as excess, why do they turn the other way at lunatic sports salaries?
Especially when you consider that the tax payers fund most of the stadiums, which in turn subsidize these salaries.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
In the old days the economics of baseball probably would have dictated that the owners would have been Republicans and the underpaid players Democrats, while today it’s just the opposite. The players are the prime targets for excessive taxation (e.g., California going after income taxes on visiting teams) while the owners are always seeking higher taxes to fund their government subsidized places of business.
Baseball is a mixed bag of public and private ownership of stadiums (the new owner of the Cubs is trying to pawn Wrigley Field onto the tax payers of Illinois) but even the privately built ones demand significant public financing of surrounding infrastructure and in some cases the heavy hand of eminent domain to claim the needed land. Which party is more likely to be aligned with these kind of interests?
April 18th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
It is also entirely possible that the powers that be in the MLB are paying what amounts to Protection Money from the Dems, or am I way off base here?
April 18th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
One thing that wasn’t mentioned — MLB’s congressional lobbyist, Lucy Calautti, is married to U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and used to work as chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.
This is a factor to consider, I believe, in looking at MLB’s PAC giving.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Perhaps the discrepancy also has to do with underlying political opinion. Republicans, in general, are not terribly big fans of antitrust laws in the first place, and it is rare that calls to “revoke the exemption” come from conservative Republicans. Why would you need to spend a lot of money greasing the palms of people who are inclined to leave you alone?
Better to spend your money ingratiating yourself to the people most likely to throw around threats and who are naturally more inimical to your interests. Democrats don’t like big profits, big business, and certainly aren’t big fans of monopolies (which MLB clearly is). Better to pay into the coffers of those who might be inclined, absent the donation, to make your life more difficult.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I am not all that surprised that the owners seem to want to pay off the Democrats over the Republicans.
But, laugh all you want, a solution would be to name George W. Bush commissioner when his presidential term ends. He was the ONLY owner to oppose the abomination that has become interleague play.
Wonder why major league baseball is so screwed up?
Because of the most incompetent owner moving “up” to commissioner, Bud Selig.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
BTW, I really like your site. Am linking it to mine!