Kerry Once Took PAC Funds, Speaking Fees

WASHINGTON — Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry took a small amount of political action committee money during a race for the House three decades ago, and later collected more than $120,000 in speaking fees from companies and lobbying groups as a new senator, records show.

Between 1985 and 1990, the year Congress outlawed speaking fees, Kerry pocketed annual amounts slightly under the limits for speaking fees by lawmakers, according to annual financial disclosure reports reviewed by Associated Press.

The fees came from interests ranging from Democratic groups and unions to oil companies and liquor lobbyists.

Kerry’s ethics reports show he made more than 90 paid speeches between 1985, when he first took office, and 1990, when Congress began the move to end honoraria.

The senator’s campaign said he accepted the speaking fees, but also gave several speeches a year for free.

Kerry said he refrained from accepting money from organizations that appeared before his Senate committees. He said he stopped taking speaker fees before Congress enacted its ban because he wanted to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

“I personally stopped accepting any honoraria because I came to think it was inappropriate. I stopped voluntarily before it became the law,” Kerry said at a news conference Monday.

Kerry has railed against the influence of special interest money on the presidential campaign trail and frequently boasts he has never taken money from PACs, the donating arms of special interest groups, since he joined the Senate.

But records from his unsuccessful race for the House in 1972 show Kerry collected about $20,000 from PACs, most of them associated with labor unions. The AFL-CIO’s PAC gave him $3,000, and the railway clerks’, autoworkers’ and state, county and municipal workers’ PACs donated $500 apiece.

Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter confirmed the senator accepted PAC money in 1972, and another small amount in 1982 when he ran for Massachusetts lieutenant governor, before abandoning such donations during his 1984 run for the Senate.

When Kerry took office in 1985, senators could still accept speaking fees but were forced to abide by annual limits, which ranged from $26,568 to $35,800.

A number of veteran lawmakers often collected more than $100,000 in a single year but had to give everything over the limit to charity. For instance, former House Ways and Means committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski once donated $155,000 of his speaking fees to charity.

Kerry reported donating a speaking fee to charity once, when he was paid $2,000 in 1988 to speak to the RJR Nabisco tobacco and food conglomerate, his reports state.

A longtime federal election regulator said Kerry’s extensive speaking efforts after he arrived in Washington followed a path taken by many new lawmakers. With congressional salaries half of what they are today, many lawmakers were pressed to find outside income.

“This provided instant cash to a member and at the same time built a relationship with that lobbyist or organization,” said Kent Cooper, former public disclosure chief for the Federal Election Commission who now runs a website that studies political donations and lobbying.