Should Iowa Universities form their own PACs?

The president of the University of Iowa said Thursday that he was "this close" to turning toward political action committees to ensure that the Iowa Legislature gets filled with lawmakers who understand the value of the public research university to the state’s economy and future.

“How do we motivate the electorate to start electing people who actually care about these things?" UI President Bruce Harreld said during a forum on the UI campus. “I’m about this close to saying, ‘OK, if we’re going to play this game, where’s our PAC?’ Because all they (lawmakers) seem to care about is the people voting. … How do we put pressure on the people to think, not in the short term, but about the longer-term consequences?”

Harreld was speaking Thursday as part of a panel discussion about the most recent findings of "The Lincoln Project: Excellence and Access in Public Higher Education." The event, which featured former UI President Mary Sue Coleman, placed the funding cuts facing Iowa's public universities in a national context.

The idea of having a public, nonprofit institution gesture toward direct intervention in electoral politics raised both red flags and cheers from higher education leaders across the state and nation.

“This is not about being cute,” said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “There are very specific federal election rules that apply to nonprofits in terms of not participating in electoral politics. You would lose your nonprofit status — at least your 501(c)(3) status — if you engaged in it.”

Nassirian said there are “a number of fairly well-known PACs that do participate in electoral politics in support of public institutions,” but those organizations are separate from the institutions they support. And, as such, “the president of said university would not be a significant decision maker” in the PAC.

There is a distinction, however, between advocacy and lobbying on behalf of issues and interfering in elections, and Nassirian said Harreld’s use of the phrase “this close” puts him on the right side of that divide.

“Where you would trip the wire would be to say that you definitely are going to set up a PAC,” Nassirian said. “You can wish that you could set up a PAC — you can even come close to wishing that you could intervene on political issues — you just can’t intervene in elections.”

UI officials said Friday that Harreld was not calling on members of the UI community to engage in electoral politics.

"The president was simply expressing his frustration with his inability to convince legislators to provide additional state support," Jeneane Beck, a spokeswoman for the university, said via email.

Joe Gorton, a professor of criminology at the University of Iowa, still praised Harreld for drawing attention to how the current defunding of the university is a direct consequence of who gets elected to state government.

“Kudos to President Harreld for understanding that, until the people who support higher education decide to engage in the political process, public universities can expect to keep getting cut and cut and cut,” he said.

Gorton is one of the organizers of Panther PAC, a year-old political action committee he said has raised about $5,000 for Democrat and Republican legislative candidates whose public rhetoric and votes support UNI.

“The model is a great model, and we’re going to be building on it, moving forward,” Gorton said. “It is a model that can be employed by other universities.”

Officials with the Iowa Board of Regents said Panther PAC is an independent organization not connected directly with the university or the board. Regent policy does not address political action committees.

The board, which oversees Iowa's three public universities, does employ a state relations officer for each institution who lobbies for that institution at the Statehouse.

Gorton said individual universities can’t rely solely on the lobbyists from the regents to represent their interests.

“The problem is that the Iowa Board of Regents keeps a very tight leash on their presidents,” Gorton said. “Historically, the regents have not wanted anyone attached to the university to do anything political. They are frozen in fear of the very people who already are cutting our fiscal resources year after year.”

Harreld’s comments came after UI received a $9.24 million cut in state funding that the university needs to implement before June 30. In response to lower than expected revenues for the current fiscal year, the Iowa Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad also has called on Iowa State University to cut nearly $9 million this year and UNI to cut more than $2.5 million.

Harreld said UI would benefit most from more stability — if not more actual dollars — being added to the process by which the state allocates funding annually for public higher education.

“I’m not so sure from our state we need more money as much as predictability,” Harreld said Thursday.

He also said public universities need to move beyond a past culture of dependency — in which they were always turning to the state with their hands outstretched — and begin more aggressively seeking new options for revenue.

“Let’s go earn out research grants. Let’s go build new businesses. Let’s go create new programs and new courses,” Harreld said. "We know how to do that; we just need to get on with it.”

Harreld's comments on state funding were challenged by Coleman, who now serves as president of the Association of American Universities.

“I agree with you, absolutely: Being able to be more entrepreneurial is very important,” Coleman said. “But I think this state has an obligation — a firm obligation — to provide some base level of support. … It is what makes the state a place that people want to be. And so I worry about saying, ‘You can walk away from that.’ Because those resources are golden because they are unrestricted funds.”