During the last presidential election, Smithfield Foods Inc., the Smithfield, Va.-based pork and beef producer, gave more than $300,000 to presidential candidates and national political committees, making it one of the leading political donors among Washington area companies.
Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic presidential nominee, has come out in favor of banning meat packers from owning livestock, a proposal that would directly interfere with Smithfield's operations. Yet this year Smithfield employees and its political action committee, aptly named HAMPAC, have given a total of only $8,670 to the presidential candidates and national party committees.
Smithfield is just one of many Washington area companies that are putting less money into the presidential contest than they did four years ago.
The major reason they give for the drop-off in contributions is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which bans unregulated soft money contributions to federal candidates and the national parties. There are routes that companies can use to get around those regulations, such as donations to "527" independent advocacy groups or to the host committees of the national party conventions. But many local companies that gave soft money in the past are choosing not to make contributions to those groups.
"We have cut back to comply with the law. Our political action committee has become more active because our employees are more aware and involved. We do not give to 527s because that would violate the spirit of campaign finance," said Jerry Hostetter, a Smithfield spokesman.
Overall, local businesses and their employees gave 45 percent less to presidential hopefuls and the national parties than they did in the 2000 election, according to an analysis of contributions from executives and employees of Washington area corporations and law firms by Dwight L. Morris and Associates. The nonpartisan campaign finance research firm performed the analysis at request of The Washington Post.
Law and lobbying firms, by contrast, are giving more. They are now the top sources of presidential campaign cash among local businesses, according to the analysis.
"Soft money is gone. Some of it is being replaced with hard money under higher contribution limits. Some of it is just disappearing from the system," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group.
During this campaign cycle, Washington area businesses gave more money to Democrats than Republicans, the research showed. Four years ago, local business gave more to Republicans than Democrats.
Dwight L. Morris and Associates analyzed contributions made in the 2004 and 2000 election cycles to presidential candidates and the Republican and Democratic national committees by the employees, their non-working spouses and children, and political action committees of the 125 top public companies, the 15 top private local companies, the 10 top local financial institutions, and the area's top 20 law firms.
