[PEN-L:33325] oligarchy: Texas style

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Local
& State

Dec. 22, 2002, 9:27AM


Wealthy few helped GOP's state sweep
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN -- Just 48 wealthy Texas families paid more than half the cost of
the key campaigns that convinced 2.6 million voters to solidify the
Republican hold on state government in last month's elections.

A Houston Chronicle study of campaign records found these wealthy few
donated $34 million of the $64 million used to finance top Republican
state campaigns.

The donors are an elite group including oil and gas producers,
petrochemical industrialists, telecommunications executives and
developers.

The top GOP donor, Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, said he and others who
contribute the most to campaigns form just one cog in the machinery of
politics and government.

"It is my view that government is not owned by anyone, least of all
wealthy contributors," Perry told the Chronicle. "The direction of
government taken by either Republicans or Democrats invariably reflects
public opinion, which always includes the `average voters.' "

The contributions of wealthy donors are "just another voice in the
cacophony of public debate," said Perry, who donated $3.8 million to
Republican funds.

Suzy Woodford, executive director of Common Cause Texas, sees it
differently. "We've now got a government by and for the wealthy few,"
said Woodford, whose group favors limits on campaign contributions.

"When we have every branch of Texas state government controlled by these
wealthy few, then the interests of the average Texan are going to be
lost."

Perry and many of the top Republican donors have histories of supporting
efforts to limit consumer and personal-injury lawsuits or to promote
school vouchers, which use tax money for private-school tuition.

Some in the past have promoted legislation that would help their
businesses or keep their investments from being taxed.

And because they donated to multiple campaigns -- ranging from Rick
Perry's election as governor to the committee that orchestrated the
election of a GOP majority in the state House for the first time in 130
years -- they now have influence at every point of power in state
government.

Bob Perry, no relation to the governor, said the donations do not
translate to undue influence on state government.

"The most significant voice always has been and always will be the
ballot that is cast at election time," he said.

But the donors' influence may be heavier in a year such as this, when
only 36 percent of the registered voters cast ballots.

Wayne Hamilton, executive director of the Texas Republican Party, said a
fundamental principle of American democracy protects campaign donations:
the right of free speech.

"I find nothing at all wrong with political activity financed by people,
whether it's small contributions or large. To me that's them exercising
their First Amendment right," he said.

And while Republican funds may be concentrated among wealthy families,
Hamilton noted that significant money for Democrats comes from
plaintiffs' lawyers, particularly the five firms that are sharing
billions in fees for handling the state's lawsuit against the tobacco
industry.

"Obviously the Democrats are bought and paid for by five individuals or
five law firms -- the tobacco five cartel," Hamilton said.

Those five firms -- which earned $3.3 billion in fees for negotiating a
$17.3 billion settlement of the state's lawsuit against the tobacco
industry in 1998 -- donated at least $2.8 million this year, almost
exclusively to Democratic political committees.

While not an insubstantial investment, the donations represented just 7
percent of the more than $41 million the Democrats spent on
nongubernatorial state politics this year. Other trial lawyers donated
at least $1.7 million more to Democratic losing causes. The number could
be higher because some donors were not identified by profession.

And Democrat Tony Sanchez put almost as much of his own money into his
losing campaign for governor -- $59 million -- as all Republican donors,
large and small, spent to elect their entire ticket.

This year's major successful self-financed candidate was Lt. Gov.-elect
David Dewhurst, a Republican who gave $10.6 million to his own campaign
and borrowed another $13 million to pour into it. Money Dewhurst has
raised after the election is being used to pay off debt and reduce his
personal liability.

The Chronicle study of campaign finance records filed with the Texas
Ethics Commission focused on Republican donations because they benefited
the officeholders who will lead Texas for the next four years.

The study examined donations to the campaigns of Gov. Perry; Dewhurst;
Attorney General Greg Abbott; Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander; Texans
for a Republican Majority, which promoted the GOP takeover of the state
House; Texans for Lawsuit Reform; the Associated Republicans of Texas;
the Republican Party of Texas; and state Rep. Tom Craddick's apparently
successful effort to ensure that fellow House members will elect him
speaker when the Legislature convenes next month.

When top donors to those efforts were identified, the Chronicle searched
the donors' records for their total state contributions during this
election cycle. This methodology would have missed contributions made by
smaller donors to the campaigns for land commissioner, railroad
commissioner, agriculture commissioner, the state's high courts, and any
donations directly to legislative candidates or nonpartisan political
committees.

No. 2 behind Bob Perry was San Antonio businessman James Leininger, a
Christian conservative philanthropist and advocate of private-school
vouchers who donated $1.2 million to Republican causes.

Other donors who gave more than $400,000 are real estate and oil
investor Albert Huddleston of Dallas; poultry producer Lonnie "Bo"
Pilgrim of Pittsburg; petrochemical investor William McMinn of Houston;
telecommunications executive Kenny Troutt of Dallas; developers Trammell
and Harlan Crow of Dallas; and Houston Texans owner Bob McNair.

Others on the list of 48 top givers contributed at least $100,000 each.

The contributions examined by the Chronicle may not represent all the
money donated because the reports went through only Oct. 26. A final
accounting is not due until Jan. 15. The calculations also do not
include donations to federal candidates or to national party accounts.

Pilgrim, for instance, donated $450,000 to national Republican
committees, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics,
which compiles campaign finance data.

On the Democratic side, Houston trial lawyer John O'Quinn gave $1
million to the Democratic National Committee, in addition to the
$585,000 he donated to state campaigns.

Houston is home to two of the state's top five GOP donors -- homebuilder
Perry and McMinn, who donated a total of $618,000. Houstonians gave a
total of $11.9 million in large and small donations to state Republican
campaigns this year. Dallas was the second-largest source of funding --
$6.3 million.

"If you're interested in good government, you need to get involved. You
either get involved with your time or your money," said McNair. "If you
don't have the time, then basically you have to provide money to an
organization so they can go out and buy somebody else's time so they can
do the campaign work or pay for the advertising."

He said the way to improve the campaign finance system is to require
greater transparency and timely reporting of who donates to political
funds.

"That's the answer, because you smoke everybody out and you know who is
putting the money up," he said. "If I'm in the construction business and
there's construction legislation up there, then it's clear."

Huddleston's aides call him "a different kind of Republican," an oilman
who also is an environmentalist with a passion for protecting Caddo
Lake, on the state's northeastern border.

"I don't even own a lake house there. I don't own property there. It's a
treasure that needs to be protected," Huddleston told the Chronicle in a
phone call from Vietnam, where he was on business.

A resident of Highland Park, a Dallas enclave that is home to the
state's wealthiest school district, Huddleston wants to get rid of the
"Robin Hood" school finance system that takes money from rich districts
and gives to poor ones. But he also is willing to propose the usually
unthinkable in Texas politics -- a flat state income tax to pay for
schools.

"Ultimately, no one can argue with educating every child in the state of
Texas," Huddleston said. "My goal is not to do it well in the short term
but to put something into play in the long term that does the job."

Pilgrim said he donates because "the Lord's been good to me" through the
free enterprise system, and he wants to help politicians who support
free enterprise as he sees it. That means, among other things, support
for lower taxes and less regulation, and opposition to unions and
personal-injury lawyers.

He said large donors probably have extra influence with politicians, and
he defended the relationship.

"I don't think the average citizen puts the study, the man-hours into
what's good for everybody," Pilgrim said. "Maybe the larger donors may
have more influence, but it's not necessarily influence for the wrong
thing."

The showcase race for Republicans this year was Gov. Perry's election to
the office he inherited from George W. Bush in 2000.

The governor's top donor was Troutt, followed closely by brothers
Charles and Sam Wyly, Dallas investors; Pilgrim; and Houston's Bob
Perry.

Other top donors to Gov. Perry include heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune
John Walton of Bentonville, Ark., and his sister, Alice Walton of
Mineral Wells. They support private-school vouchers.

In the lieutenant governor's race, Dewhurst was his own top donor, ahead
of Bob Perry, Troutt, Huddleston, Leininger and McMinn, who donated a
combined $395,000 to Dewhurst's campaign.

On the House side of the Capitol, Bob Perry was the single largest donor
to the political committee that helped coordinate the GOP takeover of
the House. Perry gave $165,000 to Texans for a Republican Majority.

The second-largest donor to Texans for a Republican Majority was the
Farmers Insurance employees committee, which gave $150,000.

Farmers' threats to pull out of the Texas homeowners insurance market
have led Gov. Perry to say he will declare insurance reform an emergency
legislative issue in January.

Attorney General Abbott's largest single benefactor was Houston's Perry,
who gave $537,500 to Abbott's campaign against Democratic trial lawyer
Kirk Watson.

Coming in second for Abbott was Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which
delivered $350,000.

Pilgrim and his family gave Abbott more than $81,000.

Pilgrim created a stir a decade ago by handing out $10,000 checks to
nine lawmakers on the Texas Senate floor during a debate on workers'
compensation insurance reform. The legislation would have a major
financial impact on his company, Pilgrim's Pride Corp.

Pilgrim now says that money was not donated for the good of his company
but for the good of all Texas workers whose jobs might have moved out of
state if the workers' compensation system had not been overhauled.

"I'm a large contributor, but I have 24,500 employees," Pilgrim said.
"I'm contributing for them. I know they are not able to contribute, some
of them.

"It's my responsibility to support the right candidates for the right
reasons. It's not selfish. It's interpreted that way by the individual
who doesn't have or can't have the same input."