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Activist's company boosts Bush cause

Ralph Hughes donates $500,000 to help promote the educational initiatives established by the governor.

By BILL VARIAN
Published March 13, 2006

TAMPA - Conservative activist Ralph Hughes is known for putting his money where his mouth is by spending thousands of dollars each election to support like-minded candidates and causes.

Now he's contributing to Gov. Jeb Bush's legacy project - in a big way.

The concrete building materials company Hughes controls has donated $500,000 to Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future, the nonprofit he has formed to defend and promote his educational initiatives as governor.

The donation by Hughes' company, Cast-Crete Corp., far surpasses any other contribution to the foundation. The foundation has raised a little more than $1.5-million since Bush formed it last year.

In an e-mail response to questions, Hughes said "we believe" Bush is by far the best governor to have served the state.

"It makes us very happy to know that he will stay active in the political affairs of our state - particularly in the field of education - via the Foundation for Florida's Future," wrote Hughes, Cast-Crete's president. "Our meager involvement was to write a check - and it made us very happy to do so."

It's not precisely clear how the foundation, an issue advocacy group, intends to spend the money it has been raising. Bush has declined to say and he did not respond to an e-mail that included questions Monday.

Attempts to reach the foundation's executive director and lead fundraiser were unsuccessful.

But in letters seeking contributions to the cause, Bush has cited a state Supreme Court ruling against vouchers, one of the cornerstones of his education reforms as governor. Bush said he was worried about the future of the program, which enables parents of children in poorly performing schools to get a voucher that lets them use tax dollars toward private tuition.

He also expressed concern that future state leaders would seek to roll back other reforms, including grading schools based on students' performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and rewarding those who do well.

Bush created the foundation after narrowly losing his 1994 campaign for governor against the late Lawton Chiles, but it lay dormant in recent years. It began accepting donations again in August.

When it was first formed, the foundation did not disclose donors, but its Web site is now listing them since the group revved back up. Nonprofits are not required to disclose donor names.

Many of the biggest donors to the foundation include developers or others related to the construction field. Cast-Crete makes precast concrete building materials such as lintels that support the weight above windows and doors, and parking space bumpers.

Hughes is known for his extensive letter-writing campaigns to civic leaders and sometimes average citizens - usually relating to local government issues - promoting lower taxes and sounding off against what he considers government waste. Each election, Hughes, his family and close business associates, donate thousands of dollars toward local political candidates.

Those candidates, generally Republican, have enjoyed success in recent years. Six of seven Hillsborough County commissioners have received money from the Hughes bloc.

While Hughes does contribute to state and federal campaigns, his donation March 9 was particularly generous, even by Hughes' standards. The next leading contributor to the foundation has been The Villages, a large development in north-central Florida, which has contributed a total of $350,000 through seven equal installments.

Century Homebuilders, a Miami company run by Bush friend Sergio Pino, has contributed $100,000, the third highest amount.

[Last modified March 13, 2006, 22:16:02]