Bush draws attention, cash from all over

The state GOP's share of soft money - from Texas and elsewhere - shows the value of having a brother who is president.

By ADAM C. SMITH, Times Political Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 21, 2002

When the president's brother campaigns for re-election, the nation reaches for its checkbook.

Half of the eye-popping $9.8-million that poured into the Florida Republican Party during the first three months of this year came from outside the state. The state GOP raised about three times as much money from out of state as the Florida Democratic Party raised overall.

The stunning overall fundraising effort, nearly seven times what the state Democratic Party raised, is testament to the importance Republicans place on Florida and the re-election of Gov. Jeb Bush.

The political ties between the brothers are underscored by the two biggest sources of out-of-state cash: Texas, the political home base of the Bush family, and Washington, D.C., where the president controls the national GOP machinery.

Bush was a champion fundraiser before he was elected four years ago, but not like this. The state party never raised more money in a three-month period except at the tail end of Florida's neck-and-neck 2000 presidential campaign.

"With Jeb Bush as governor, he has access to all of his brother's president's resources," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virgina.

Corporate cash tends to flow to the party in power, and several companies that have won major state contracts or are lobbying for favorable legislation gave heavily to the state GOP.

Telecommunications companies, for example, gave more than $246,000 as they pressed lawmakers and the governor for legislation that could raise local phone rates.

Bush insists there is no direct tie between campaign cash and political favors.

"People contribute to the governor or other elected officials because they believe in their philosophies, not because they believe there's any quid pro quo here," said Bush spokeswoman Katie Muniz.

Donations to the party are not specifically for Bush, but his re-election campaign is the chief beneficiary. While there is a $500 limit on contributions to the Bush campaign, there is no limit to contributions to state parties.

The parties in turn help pay for state campaigns.

Such so-called soft money raised by the political parties has long been decried by campaign finance reform advocates such as Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. Soft money will be banned in federal elections after November, but the ban won't have much impact on funding of Florida campaigns.

Gov. Bush has traveled to Pennsylvania, New York, Texas and Washington to raise money. President Bush has headlined two fundraisers, including a $25,000-a-plate luncheon at the Don Cesar Beach Resort in St. Pete Beach.

The fruits of that fundraising prowess are expected to be on display this week as the state GOP starts running television ads more than six months from election day.

As in past Bush campaigns, Texas money is gushing into Florida. Bush family ties run deep in the Lone Star State, and Jeb Bush has attended fundraisers in Houston and Dallas to tap some of the deep pockets that are political benefactors of his brother and father.

Dennis Berman, a copy machine magnate in Irving, Texas, raised at least $100,000 for George W. Bush's presidential campaign. Berman was among at least 40 Texans giving $10,000 or more to the Florida GOP. Hushang Ansary, a Houston offshore oil drilling company owner who gave $100,000 to the Bush-Cheney inauguration, gave $40,000.

Of the more than $800,000 in Texas contributions, the single biggest donor was the El Paso Energy Service Co., which gave $60,000. El Paso and Enron Corp. co-own gas transmission lines in Florida, and the Houston company has proposed building a controversial power plant in south Florida and a gas line from Grand Bahama to Florida.

Bush will rely mainly on soft money to finance his campaign, and he and his brother in the White House actively helped fill the Republican war chest in Florida.

Gov. Bush is expected to raise about $6.3-million in so-called hard money -- donations given directly to his campaign. But he won't spend much more than that because if he does his eventual Democratic challenger would receive matching public money for every dollar Bush spent above the limit.

By foregoing public financing, Bush can use soft money and its unlimited cap on donations as the backbone of his campaign.

Critics say such donations are so big that politicians can't help but be influenced by them. They say it amounts to political money laundering because it's tough to tell who's giving to which candidate. The state GOP, for instance, received $1.9-million from national Republican committees, but it's impossible to tell precisely where that money originated.

Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause of Florida, said it's particularly troubling that so much money flowed into state political parties while lawmakers were debating major public policy issues, such as local phone rates.

"These businesses don't give to government for good government. They're giving in the hopes that government will be good to them," said Wilcox. "They're investing on the front end."

Some of the biggest donors to the state GOP have big state contracts. For instance, Consultec, a Georgia company with a $124-million contract to manage Florida's Medicaid program, gave $115,000.

Executives with Federated Investors Inc. of Pittsburgh gave $284,500 to the party this year, more than any other corporation. Federated recently won a contract potentially worth millions of dollars to manage state employee retirement savings.

Two weeks before Bush and two Cabinet members awarded the contract, Federated executives and their spouses also gave $17,000 directly to Bush's re-election campaign, the Palm Beach Post reported Saturday,.

A company spokeswoman said the executives would have no comment about their contributions.

Last year, PHP Holdings Inc. gave $175,000 to the state Republican Party. The company's HMO, Physicians Healthcare Plans, has a $246-million state Medicaid contract under review for renewal.

In October, the party received $100,000 from the Anderson Group of Companies, a Pittsburgh investment firm. Its CEO, Steve Savor, ran a communications company, Com-Net Ericsson, that won a 20-year, $271-million contract in 2000 to build a statewide radio system.

"We like the Florida Republican Party," Savor said.

Some wealthy individuals write huge checks without any apparent profit motive. Richard Mellon Scaife, for instance, is a billionaire patron of conservative causes best known for helping to fund journalistic investigations of Bill Clinton, such as the American Spectator's story on Clinton's alleged use of Arkansas state troopers to procure dates with women. He gave $20,000 to the Florida GOP.

In St. Petersburg, James MacDougald gave the party $115,000. MacDougald said he won't personally benefit from it. MacDougald became a multimillionaire in 1999 after selling ABR Information Services, the employee benefits company he founded. These days he says his main business ventures are building homes in St. Petersburg and investing in shipwreck explorations.

MacDougald said he gives much more money to charity than politics, but even in his tax bracket, writing such a hefty check gives him a "twinge." Still, he says he gets nothing out of it personally.

"I guess I'm the guy the cynics won't believe, but my wife and I are supporting the party and the governor because we believe in what they're trying to do. . . . I have no ulterior motive," MacDougald said.

-- Times computer assisted reporting specialist Connie Humburg and Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

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