NAR gives $800,000 to Shays
Greenwich Time, Wednesday, October 29, 2008
By Neil Vigdor
At odds with his own party's establishment over attack ads it did on his behalf in prior races, Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., has turned to a different kind of surrogate to do his bidding in his re-election fight against Democrat Jim Himes.
The National Association of Realtors has pumped $804,371 into television advertisements and direct mail to support Shays, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C., organization that tracks the flow of money into campaigns.
While the political action committee's efforts are independent of Shays' campaign activities, including fundraising, the amount spent by Chicago-based NAR is equivalent to a quarter of the incumbent's entire $3.2 million war chest.
Only one other candidate - House Democrat Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania - received more support from the nationwide association.
Though Shays acknowledged reaching out to the group, the 21-year incumbent said he didn't expect it to deliver in such a big way.
"I'm grateful for their assistance. I'm surprised by it," said Shays, a former real estate agent and former member of the association. "I've sought their help because I'm pretty much in sync with their views."
A number of left-wing political blogs have raised questions about the influence of special interests such as NAR on Shays' campaign, pointing to the congressman's support of a controversial bill that would overturn a Federal Housing Administration ban on seller-financed down payments on mortgages.
Critics of the no-money-down FHA mortgages, which were banned by Congress during the summer with backing from the Bush administration, have argued that they are three times more likely to wind up in foreclosure than those where the buyer makes a down payment.
Among the bill's opponents is Himes, who a number of recent polls have shown as running neck-and-neck with Shays, New England's lone House Republican.
"We are setting people up to fail when we offer no-down-payment home loans," Himes said in a statement. "Home owners need to demonstrate an ability to save, both so that they will be able to meet mortgage payments, and so that they will have funds in reserve when the inevitable headaches of homeownership come up. For these reasons, I do not support this bill."
The Himes campaign declined to comment further about the influx of money from the National Association of Realtors into the race.
Shays said he was approached by U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, to sign onto the bill, which some of the same liberal blogs point out has been supported by a number of Democrats.
A message seeking comment was left Tuesday with one of Green's aides.
A spokeswoman for NAR, which has 1.2 million Realtor members nationally and about 16,300 members in Connecticut, said the association decided to back Shays well before he signed onto the bill.
"It did not come into play in our decision," said Mary Trupo of NAR.
What did come into play, Trupo said, is Shays' support of a measure that would that create a permanent firewall between the banking and real estate industries to keep them separate.
"Think of where we are right now. Imagine if banks were in the real estate market and they were holding properties. It would be catastrophic," Trupo said. "It would offer unfair advantages to the banks."
Trupo said Shays also has backed efforts to establish health insurance cooperatives across state lines, another initiative supported by the association.
"Nearly 30 percent of (our) members do not have health insurance because of affordability," Trupo said. "Our members are most often independent contractors or they're small businesses."
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, NAR has spent $947,910 helping Republicans and $542,505 helping Democrats.
"We don't look at Democrat and we don't look at Republican. We look at candidates that are part of what we like to call the Realtor party," Trupo said. "We don't expect (Shays) to grant us any special treatment or favors for our support, but we do show our appreciation for his support of issues that are important to our members."
For Shays, the efforts of NAR help fill a void of created by his own party.
In 2006, the National Republican Congressional Committee poured $1.5 million into Shays' re-election campaign, much of which was spent on ads attacking Democrat Diane Farrell.
On several occasions, Shays has denounced the ads. His aides said he even went as far as to spurn the NRCC's assistance in his latest re-election battle.
While the national GOP fundraising machine has been a no-show this year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has funneled more than $1 million into television spots alone to help Himes. Shays has called the ads negative.
A spokeswoman for the DCCC disputed Shays' characterization and said that one popular ad, in which the congressman is quoted as saying that the "fundamentals of the economy are (sound)," was quite accurate.
"Congressman Shays himself said that 'the fundamentals of our economy are (sound), no one can disagree with that.' If he finds TV ads that just repeat his own words to be horribly offensive and negative, then he has proved beyond a doubt that it's time for a change and new leadership in Congress," said Carrie James of the DCCC.
