The Hammer and the Shogun: A Comparison of Corrupt
Legislative Leadership in Japan and the United States.
Charles Funderburk
Wright State University
Tom DeLay and Kakuei Tanaka are two of the more successful legislative leaders that of the last half of the Twentieth century. Kakuei Tanaka emerged from the poor rural “backside” of Japan’s northern snow country. By the time he retired from politics in 1987 he had attained wealth and political power and had become the first man in the Twentieth Century without a university education to be chosen prime minister of Japan. Tom DeLay entered the American political stage as an obscure state legislator from Sugar Land, Texas. After running a pest control business, DeLay entered politics partly out of frustration with government regulations in general and the Environmental Protection Agency in particular. After three terms in the Texas legislature he was elected to Congress where he made his mark first as the Exterminator from Sugar Land battling government regulators, and later as the Republican party leader who oversaw the fund raising operation that became known as DeLay, Inc. Both men were formidable fund-raisers and parlayed their influence with the party and positions of public office to build a political organization of national influence.
Machine Politics, Japanese Style
As in the United States, machine politics in Japan involved party electoral dominance, generous amounts of money and public works, and questionable business practices, but differed in that in Japan the party machine became nationwide in scope. Following the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II under the direction of General Douglas MacArthur the United States imposed a new constitution on Japan, establishing a formal legal framework for political democracy. Emerging from the amalgam of American political ideas and Japanese cultural, economic and political traditions was a system not unlike that of American machine politics, but writ large on a nationwide scale.
A national party machine was possible in Japan because government and economic planning in post-war Japan was highly centralized. A well-educated elite civil service was influential in both planning and implementation of policy and regulations. Politicians worked closely with government planners in the national bureaucracy and with the corporate structure. Kakuei Tanaka, the architect of the Liberal Democratic political machine in postwar Japan, was able to impose his influence into the political process by using his political skills, business connections and financial clout to create a national party machine that could consistently win national parliamentary elections. Emerging at first as a regional political figure, Tanaka’s fund-raising abilities and political savvy elevated him into a major player in the Parliament. He exercised influence over a wide range of policies, especially government spending priorities. Eventually he became the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the only politician in post-war Japan without a college education to be selected Prime Minister.
The Liberal Democratic Party
Despite its name, the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party consisted of a group of conservative politicians closely allied with the dominant business interests that shaped post-war economics and society in Japan. Kakuei Tanaka emerged from the isolated northern snow country of Japan to become one of the founders of the Liberal Democratic Party and the architect of the national political machine that dominated Japanese politics until the 1990s. Employing populist techniques Kakuei Tanaka succeeded in presenting himself to the voters as a man of the people who could deliver the political goods, especially pork barrel projects for his district. For example, the Niigata bullet-train line passing through his district took eleven years and 1.7 trillion yen to build. The cost of 6 billion yen per kilometer was perhaps the most expensive train in the world. (Schlesinger, p. 104.)
Part of Tanaka’s leverage over politicians in Parliament was their need for money. Tanaka became legendary for his ability to obtain funding for public works as well as his prowess for raising huge amounts of campaign contributions and his generosity is dispensing campaign funds to his supporters in the party. The result was the gundan (“the Army corps”), a loyal and sizable bloc of voters in Parliament. His combination of party influence, financial clout and control of the gundan in parliament elevated Tanaka to the role of king-maker. His support was needed in order to become Prime Minister.
Tanaka’s political machine soon developed characteristics familiar to students of party politics and political corruption in the United States. Conflicts of interests came to be regarded as acceptable, “honest graft” and insider trading proliferated, influence peddling and exploitation of friends in high places were routine. Fees were collected (and expected), along with occasional shakedowns, from businesses in exchange for government contracts. Generous contributions to party and elected officials poured in, along with gifts to civil servants and ministers to reimburse “expenses,” and bribes were described as “advanced payments.” In a conversation with one new member of the LDP, Tanaka stated “You can’t be a politician if this amount of money makes you nervous.” (Schlesinger, p. 112.)
The fact that Tanaka owned a construction company permitted him to work through ghost companies with no link to him. For example, “the companies had an uncanny knack for snapping up cheap Niigata property that, unbeknownst to the old landowners, was about to soar in value, thanks to soon-to-be-announced public works projects.” (Schlesinger, p. 72.)
Another source of Tanaka’s political influence was his creation of a social structure that paralleled the organization of the government. The Etsuzankai was founded in the 1950s as a political movement to assist development of the impoverished region. The Etsuzankai gradually evolved into a sophisticated political organization. It consisted of tiers of local organizations corresponding to the layers of government in the district. By the 1970s the Etsuzankai boasted nearly 100,000 members, constituting about 20 percent of the district’s eligible voters and its newspaper had a circulation of 50,000. The Etsuzankai was organized as a hierarchical pyramid with 300 neighborhood organizations. Under Tanaka’s control the organization came to dominate the districts political, business and social affairs. (Schlesinger, pp. 104 - 106.)
Trouble began for Prime Minister Tanaka in the form of a bribery scandal involving Lockheed, the American aviation company. Tanaka was offered a share of a 500 million yen bribe (worth $1.6 million at the time) to ensure that All Nippon Airways purchased Lockheed aircraft. As the facts came to light in the mid-1970s the scandal picked up steam. Tanaka became the first Japanese Prime Minister to face criminal charges and endured a lengthy and humiliating trial. (Schlesinger, pp. 82 - 90.)
Tanaka faced reelection to Parliament as an accused felon. Mobilizing the Etsuzankai and reactivating his populist electoral themes (attacking the “degree-holding elite”) Tanaka was reelected three times during his criminal trial. His continuing presence and influence in Japanese politics earned him the media description as a “Shadow Shogun.” (Schlesinger, p. 95.)
Eventually, old age and poor health weakened Tanaka’s control of the LDP. After Tanaka suffered a stroke 1985 a power struggle ensued and by the early 1990s the LDP machine Tanaka had collapsed. In 1983, a poll showed that more than half of the people of Niigata chose Tanaka as the native son they were most proud of. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who had led the successful Japanese naval attack on Peal Harbor finished a distant second. (Schlesinger, p. 106.)
DeLay, Inc.
Tom DeLay used party leadership as his route to political power. After the Republican party gained control of the U. S. House of Representatives following their victories in the 1994 Congressional elections, DeLay became Republican whip and eight years later in 2003 was elected majority leader. He became a party leader at a time when the seniority and committee systems were declining in influence and party leadership had become more powerful. He benefited from those developments and contributed to them by using his fundraising and organizational skills to consolidate his power as a party leader. His formidable fundraising operation became known as “Delay, Inc.,” or the K Street Project. (Continetti, pp. 42 – 61.)
DeLay, Inc. was a system for funneling political money through individuals, lobbying and consulting company employees, and political action committees (PACs) in a manner that circumvented federal campaign finance laws, which limited individual and corporate contributions. For example, corporate funds could be funneled to an entity not required to report them, or to another congressional or senatorial campaign that could turn the money around and send it back as a contribution. Multiple PACs received checks from the same individuals (or employees of their companies). That money was then funneled via the PACs to other candidates of DeLay’s choice. Money was moving in circles. (Dubose and Reid, pp. 121 – 123.)
One key to DeLay’s growing influence in Congress was that he used the money produced by DeLay, Inc. to benefit members of his party. DeLay used his position as a leader in Congress to solicit the funds and then funneled the money to Republican candidates for Congress. DeLay, Inc. was raising money in volumes never seen in the U.S. Congress, and what Tom DeLay gave, Tom DeLay could take away.
The second key to DeLay’s legislative influence was DeLay’s ability to solicit money from corporate sources and big political donors. Consider, for example, Ken Lay of the Enron Corporation. Before the collapse of Enron, it had contributed $500,000 to ARMPAC, Delay’s PAC. Dubose and Reid estimate that by 2003 Delay’s fundraising machine had raised $14 million over a two year period, including $1.3 million in one night. (Dubose and Reid, pp. 133 – 123.)
DeLay used the classic carrots and stick approach to wield power as Republican whip, and later majority leader. A Democratic Congressman described it this way: “He is better than anyone I’ve ever seen when it comes to care and feeding of House members.” (Dubose and Reid, p. 271.) Once a week Delay’s whip organization served lunch to the entire Republican Conference while discussing party strategy and goals. When it was time to use the stick instead of serving carrots, DeLay played hardball, threatening to sponsor opponents in Republican primary elections and using his clout to remove recalcitrant committee chairs. (Dubose and Reid, pp. 271 - 273.)
DeLay increased his power by extending his influence to the congressional lobbying community housed primarily on K Street in downtown Washington, D.C. He aggressively leaned on associations and lobbying and consulting companies to hire only Republicans, and used his power to block legislation in order to deny Democratic lobbyists access to the legislature and its leadership. This strategy became known as the K Street Project. (Continetti, p. 44.) DeLay sent the message that any major hires by lobbying and consulting firms required the approval of the Republican leadership. According to Dubose and Reid, (p. 271), to enforce this policy DeLay asked the representatives of lobbying and consulting firms three questions:
- Is the candidate a Republican?
- How much money has the candidate contributed to Republicans?
- Has the candidate contributed any money to Democrats?
Another clear indicator of his influence as a party leader in Congress was the role Tom DeLay played in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. DeLay is described by Dubose and Reid as obsessed with taking down Bill Clinton. He aggressively supported impeachment of the president and was active in blocking approval of less severe alternatives to impeachment, including censure, and censure with a financial penalty. To round up votes for impeachment, DeLay’s staff compiled a list of Republican House members who faced tight battles for reelection and put out the word that the party leadership would support opponents in primary elections of anyone who voted wrong on impeachment. (Dubose and Reid, p. 149.) There was a price to be paid for these heavy-handed tactics. In the congressional elections of 1998 rather than gaining the expected twenty seats in the House of Representatives, the Republicans lost five seats. Despite impeachment by the House, President Clinton was not convicted by the Senate and remained in office with a 70 percent public approval rating.
At the peak of his power, Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle had been following the circular flow of money that was the hallmark or Delay, Inc., and concluded that much of the money DeLay’s Texas PAC (TRMPAC) spent on elections in Texas was raised from corporations, a violation of Texas law. Specifically, TRMPAC raised $190,000 of corporate money which was then forwarded to the Republican National Committee. Two weeks later, the RNC sent out checks totaling $190,000 to seven Republican candidates for the Texas legislature. The circular flow of money raised by Delay, Inc. converted corporate money to contributions that ended up in campaigns for the Texas state legislature. Texas law specifies that knowingly spending corporate money on a state political campaign is a felony. DeLay’s Texas PAC put $1.5 million into successful elections of seventeen new Republican members of the Texas House as a means of controlling the redistricting of congressional seats to ensure a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. (Dubose and Reid, pp.262 – 268.)
On September 5, 2005, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle indicted Tom Delay on charges of money laundering and criminal conspiracy. Texas law allows residents accused of violating Texas election laws to be tried in their home counties. This may reduce the odds of a conviction of DeLay in the case, but the damage is done to his legacy as a legislative leader and to his aspirations to become Speaker of the House.
Conclusion
This paper compares the operation of two influential political party leaders in the national legislatures of the United States and Japan. Kakuei Tanaka, the architect of the Liberal Democratic Party political machine in postwar Japan, was able to impose his influence into the political process by using his political skills, business connections and financial clout to create a national party machine that could consistently win national parliamentary elections. Using a similar combination of political skills, connections and financial clout, Tom DeLay rose to the position of Republican whip and later Majority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives during a period of Republican ascendancy. Both men eventually suffered the similar fate of being indicted for political corruption and leaving the legislature under an ethical cloud.
References
George C. S. Benson, Political Corruption in America. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1978.
Matthew Continetti, The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of The Republican Machine. New York Doubleday, 2006.
Lou Dubose and Jan Reid, The Hammer Comes Down: The Nasty, Brutish and Shortened Political
Life of Tom DeLay. New York, Public Affairs Press, 2006.
Jacob M. Schlesinger, Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan’s Postwar Political Machine. Stanford, California:
Stanford d University Press, 1999.
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