Quote:

A BLADE INVESTIGATION
Bush fund-raisers cash in by giving - then receiving
By JIM TANKERSLEY,
JOSHUA BOAK, AND
CHRISTOPHER D. KIRKPATRICK
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
First of three parts



President Bush's corporate champions see the spoils of his administration in coal. And timber. And credit-card payments, Afghan electric lines, Japanese bank transfers, and fake crab.

America's business leaders supplied more than $75 million to return Mr. Bush to the White House last year - and he has paid dividends.

Bush Administration policies, grand and obscure, have financially benefited companies or lobbying clients tied to at least 200 of the President's largest campaign fund-raisers, a Blade investigation has found. Dozens more stand to gain from Bush-backed initiatives that recently passed or await congressional approval.

The investigation examined targeted tax breaks, regulatory changes, pro-business legislation, high-profile salaried appointments, and federal contracts.

Mr. Bush's policies often followed specific requests from his 548 "Pioneers" and "Rangers," who each raised at least $100,000 or $200,000 for his 2004 re-election. The help to business fund-raisers sometimes came at the expense of consumers or public health concerns.

The beneficiaries span industries and the nation. Examples include:

Timber barons who pay lower tax rates on logging sales and face fewer barriers to harvesting trees in national forests because of administrative changes and laws Mr. Bush signed.

Energy producers who dodged potential legal fees and cleanup costs after federal officials revised clean-air standards.

Heads of stock brokerages and other multinational firms, which, under a special tax incentive in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, are bringing hundreds of millions of dollars they earned or stored abroad back into the United States this year at reduced rates.

Executives of defense contractors United Technologies and the Washington Group, which won contracts potentially totaling more than $6 billion to supply American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and rebuild both countries' infrastructure. The same contractors won far less government work under President Bill Clinton.

Mining executives who tapped new veins of coal, thanks to administrative rule changes that opened swaths of hills and forests to their backhoes and left once-protected streams vulnerable to pollution.

With rare exception - such as a California Pioneer recently implicated in a congressional bribery scandal - the Bush supporters' benefits appear to come through legal channels of lobbying, rule-making, and legislation.

But a federal investigation of Ohio Pioneer Tom Noe, indicted in October on charges he laundered money into the President's campaign, has focused attention on Mr. Bush's network of elite fund-raisers, who accounted for at least 28 percent of Mr. Bush's $271.8 million in individual contributions for the 2004 campaign.

A Blade investigation beginning in April led to accusations by state officials that Mr. Noe stole millions of dollars the state invested in his rare-coin funds. The probe also brought the money-laundering allegations against Mr. Noe to light.

A Blade report in October showed Ohio's 30 Pioneers and Rangers have secured more than $1.2 billion from taxpayers since 2001 for their companies and lobbying clients.

All of the Pioneers and Rangers who agreed to talk to the Blade for this series said they supported Mr. Bush's ideology and style of governance and said they expected no reward but his victory.

"I was pleased he was a candidate. I liked what his father had done," said Herbert Boeckmann, a California Bush Pioneer who owns the world's largest Ford dealership. "He was a little bit of a maverick, but he recognized the key was to get the job done."

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said Mr. Bush has helped the country add 4.4 million jobs since May, 2003.

"The President's pro-growth economic policies have helped small business, families, and first-time home buyers," said the spokesman, Aaron McLear.

Some experts agree. Martin Regalia, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Mr. Bush embraces traditional pro-business policies, such as lowering taxes and lessening government regulations.

"When you look at the overall economy, it's doing very well with solid GDP growth and low core rates of inflation," Mr. Regalia said. "Part of the reason, certainly, is his policies."

Politics and policy
Mr. Bush is hardly the first president to help supporters financially.

William McKinley doled government jobs to his backers after winning the 1896 presidential election. Mr. Clinton raised tariffs on soap and batteries imported from Europe as retaliation for tariffs that continent levied against the South American bananas of a Clinton supporter, Cincinnati's Carl Lindner, who later became a Bush Ranger.

In his 2004 presidential bid, Sen. John Kerry called for a 36 percent hike in the federal minimum wage, a policy supported by the AFL-CIO, a labor union whose members contributed heavily to the Democrat's failed presidential campaign.

Campaign-finance analysts question whether Mr. Bush's system of recognizing top fund-raisers - as opposed to donors who cannot give more than $2,000 per election cycle to a presidential candidate - provides corporate leaders with special treatment.

Steve Weisman, associate director for policy at the Campaign Finance Institute in Washington, said election law does not require candidates to reveal any details about their fund-raising networks.

"Right now, what we know is what the campaigns tell us," he said. "Shouldn't we disclose the people who get credit for arranging for these donations? Isn't there a problem that they might have some undue influence on the recipient?"

Bankruptcy reform
Many Pioneers and Rangers joined Mr. Bush before the 2000 election, when he was governor of Texas. They saw him as a powerful advocate for business, and they made no secret what they hoped to get from his administration.

Credit-card giant MBNA wanted to collect more of its customers' debts.

The Delaware-based company has supplied 54 million Americans with novelty credit cards displaying Elvis Presley, a charging Florida State University Seminole on horseback, or an Icelandair flight cruising above the Atlantic Ocean.

The seduction by plastic includes bonus points, "Love Me Tender" teddy bears, and occasionally personal bankruptcy.

When MBNA's customers filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, courts wiped their credit balances away. MBNA wrote off $4.1 billion in unpaid credit-card bills last year.

To stem the losses, the company worked to change the rules. It spent nearly $20 million from 1998 to 2004 to lobby Congress on issues including bankruptcy reform. Even before Mr. Clinton killed a reform bill late in his second term, MBNA had turned to George W. Bush.

MBNA employees gave the Bush campaign more than $200,000 in 2000, the most of any company, and allowed the campaign to use an MBNA corporate jet. The new president pushed bankruptcy reform in his first term, but an unrelated congressional dispute scuttled it.

The company worked hard for Mr. Bush again last year. Former MBNA CEO Charles Cawley and Vice Chairman Lance Loring Weaver both qualified as Rangers, each raising at least $200,000 for the President's re-election.

MBNA surpassed Enron last year to become the largest corporate patron of Mr. Bush's career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

The eight-year struggle for bankruptcy reform ended within 90 days of Mr. Bush's second inaugural address. The 500-page law, initially crafted by a financial services lobbyist, mandates credit counseling for prospective filers and makes it harder to escape credit-card debt.

"The legislation in effect deputizes the bankruptcy courts as collection agents for the credit-card companies," said Mark Sargent, dean of Villanova University's law school, a bankruptcy expert, and critic of the bill. "The great irony of this is that it's having your cake and eating it too. They push credit to anyone with a pulse."

Americans received 5.23 billion credit-card mailings - 18 offers for each man, woman, and child - in 2004, according to Vertis, a marketing consultant. About 1.6 million households filed for bankruptcy last year, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, up from 287,570 in 1980.

The reform law's implementation in October caused a temporary spike in bankruptcy filings that will hurt MBNA's short-term profits but should reduce future bankruptcy filings, the company said in its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Todd Zywicki, a George Mason University law professor who favors the law, testified to a Senate committee that credit-card companies would receive an additional $3 billion each year with its passage.

Based on the market share figures compiled by the industry analyst Web site cardweb.com, the law will give MBNA about $380 million more annually. That figure would feed the company's yearly profit of $2.6 billion.

In June, after the law passed, Bank of America agreed to purchase MBNA for $35 billion, 31 percent above the company's market value at the time. An analyst called the sale price "rich."

MBNA representatives declined to comment. However, Philip Corwin, an attorney for the American Bankers Association, said the legislation was approved to curb abuses of the bankruptcy system rather than boost the revenues of credit-card companies.

"This is not a windfall," he said.

Seafood situation
Frank Dulcich netted more subtle help from the Bush Administration.

For years, the fish baron and his family-owned string of seafood processors, the Pacific Seafood Group, fought a steady current of government fishing restrictions.

Some schools of rockfish, once a staple of West Coast fishing, had dwindled. Pacific's Oregon-based executives and lobbyists complained that federal scientists couldn't fully explain why and that regulators responded to the shortage by limiting catches too severely. In 2000, Mr. Dulcich penned an op-ed article titled, "Seafood community set adrift by Congress."

A lobbyist for Mr. Dulcich and other processors told a federal commission in 2002 that the government's caution in protecting ocean life was "like the difference between birth-control pills and abstinence: You have a 95 percent chance of preventing pregnancy with the former and a 100 percent chance with the latter, but abstinence is nowhere near as rewarding."

The same year, federal officials restricted fishing of whiting, which processors use to make imitation crab and frozen fish sticks. Commercial fishermen catch more whiting off the Pacific Coast than any other fish. Pacific Seafood says it handles more of it than any land-based processor.

Mr. Dulcich, who previously had donated to Democratic and Republican congressmen in the Pacific Northwest, upped his political activity in 2002. He hired the Gallatin Group, a lobbying firm that boasted two Bush Pioneers.

Soon Mr. Dulcich scored a meeting with the U.S. commerce secretary, escorted a top federal fisheries regulator along the Oregon coast, and joined the ranks of Bush Pioneers.

Mr. Bush signed a bill early in 2004 directing $950,000 from the federal treasury that helped Pacific Seafood treat wastewater on the Oregon coast.

Citing a new study, the Bush Administration pulled whiting from the "overfished" list, increasing catch limits nearly 70 percent and sending more fish to processors. A spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which sets fishing levels, said whiting populations rebounded strongly following the decision. Another official said it appears to have been a mistake to restrict the fish in the first place.

"When we make decisions about taking things off the overfished list," said NOAA spokesman Susan Buchanan, "it has nothing to do with politicians and everything to do with science."

Mr. Dulcich and Gallatin lobbyists did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Much of the West Coast fishing industry is gasping for air, as trawlers sit unused in docks and some fishermen look for new jobs. But Pacific Seafood reeled in an estimated $700 million in revenue last year, according to the trade magazine Seafood Business, which ranks the company third among American seafood suppliers.

Fishermen who have battled Mr. Dulcich over crab and fish prices dub his company "the Wal-Mart of the Seas."

Several pending laws, many supported by Mr. Bush, could help Pacific Seafood grow even faster. One would guarantee Pacific and other processors a chunk of the whiting catch each year. Mr. Bush publicly opposes such quotas, but he signed a similar measure for Alaskan crab last year. Federal officials added a seat for Mr. Dulcich on a committee studying quotas last year.

Another plan would allow decommissioned off-shore oil rigs to transform into floating fish farms, guaranteeing seafood processors a steady fish supply, sparing oil companies millions in cleanup costs, and raising concerns about farmed fish spreading disease to wild stocks.

Mr. Bush recently proposed an overhaul of the nation's signature fisheries management law, including changes that conservation groups say would weaken restrictions on overfishing. Some paragraphs of the plan match a proposal drafted by seafood processors nearly word for word.

"Frank is a smart, very personable guy," said Peter Huhtala, senior policy director for the Pacific Marine Conservation Council, which works on fisheries issues. "But in order to keep growing ... and adding to his wealth, I think you're seeing some politics at play too."

Competing interests
Other Pioneers and Rangers hope Mr. Bush's policies will add to their wealth soon.

They include Wall Street traders banking on a 2003 dividend tax cut to boost stock prices, doctors seeking caps on their lawsuit liability, pharmaceutical executives waiting for a new federal prescription drug plan to kick millions of dollars their way, and the wife of the chairman of the Hallmark greeting-card company, which is lobbying to slow the increase in postage rates.

In some cases, though, the wish lists of Bush supporters clash. For example, the automotive industry - with all of its moving parts.

Among Mr. Bush's top fund-raisers is Nicholas Taubman, former CEO of Advance Auto Parts Inc. and the recently appointed U.S. ambassador to Romania.

Mr. Taubman, who did not return a call to The Blade, supports controversial legislation - the "Right to Repair Act" - that would bolster his $4.65 billion company. It would force automakers to share information on car parts and technology.

The knowledge would help independent mechanics work more effectively on newer cars and promote healthy competition for repair business, said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas), who is sponsoring the bill. Those mechanics need parts from affordable sources, such as Mr. Taubman's company and competitor AutoZone.

Automakers and dealers are fighting the bill, claiming Advanced Auto Parts and others are less interested in promoting the free market and more interested in making money off of cheaper replacement parts.

Connected dealership magnates who oppose the bill, such as Bob Tuttle and John Click, are also Pioneers and Rangers. So are Kenneth Zangara, a large-scale Dodge dealer in Albuquerque, N.M., and Mr. Boeckmann, the Los Angeles owner of Galpin Motors.

Mr. Barton has delayed the legislation for years, hoping the sides could settle amicably. But talks have always broken down, said Barton spokesman Karen Modlin.

The President has not yet weighed in.

Blade staff writers Mike Wilkinson, Steve Eder, and James Drew contributed to this report.

Bush money network rooted in Florida, Texas
By STEVE EDER
AND JIM DREW
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
Second of three parts



DALLAS - Long before George W. Bush began campaigning for the White House, his family built a fund-raising network of wealthy supporters to bankroll his political ambitions and propel him to the presidency.

The network - including oilmen, lobbyists, developers, and agricultural executives - became accustomed to the Bush family's style of government, with George W. Bush as governor of Texas and brother Jeb Bush as governor of Florida.

The political financiers made an investment in the Bush family, an investment that paid off.

By 2004, President Bush's re-election campaign had assembled 66 elite fund-raisers in Texas and 55 in Florida. Some of the supporters, known as Pioneers and Rangers for raising at least $100,000 or $200,000, respectively, say they collected contributions for Mr. Bush because he was a trusted friend with common political ideas.

Some, though, acknowledge that being a prolific fund-raiser translates into access for those who want to influence government decisions.

"If you support someone, it's going to give you a leg up on getting an audience. There's nothing wrong with that," said Pioneer Charles Beggs Moncrief of Moncrief Oil in Fort Worth.

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President's elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients, a Blade investigation shows. In Florida, massive sugar companies and development firms led by Bush Pioneers and Rangers have reaped millions of dollars from government policies, which environmentalists say have sided with sprawl and development over the restoration of the Everglades.

The Bush strongholds of Texas and Florida became the roots of a fund-raising tree that by 2004 had enlisted 548 Pioneers and Rangers nationwide - including 30 in Ohio.

A Blade report in October showed that Mr. Bush's top Ohio fund-raisers collected more than $1.2 billion in taxpayers' dollars for their companies and lobbying clients.

One Ohio "Pioneer," former Toledo-area rare-coin dealer Tom Noe, was indicted in October on three felony charges that he illegally laundered money into the Bush re-election campaign. The Blade first reported on April 3 that the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation gave Mr. Noe $50 million to invest in his rare-coin funds. State officials accuse him of stealing millions of dollars from the funds.

Supporting the 'cause'
Members of President Bush's prestigious fund-raising clubs in Texas and Florida - who raised at least $17.1 million of the $40 million collected for his re-election effort last year in the two states - stood to win millions of dollars through federal energy, environmental, or agricultural policies. Others had federal contracts to supply accounting services to government agencies or electricity to the Department of Defense, while some won high-ranking appointments and ambassadorships.

Bill Ceverha, a Bush Pioneer and political strategist who spent 12 years in the Texas Legislature, believes that most of Mr. Bush's key fund-raisers didn't expect anything from the President besides sound governance.

"These are people of a stature that they don't want any appointments. They don't need anything from the government," said Mr. Ceverha, who works as a political adviser to Louis Beecherl, an oilman and Bush Pioneer who declines to speak with the media. "They are just doing it because they believe in the cause."

In the early 1990s, Mr. Ceverha was among the Texans who helped persuade George W. Bush to run for governor. Today, there are photos of Mr. Bush on the wall of his Dallas office, and Mr. Ceverha says he and his wife are invited to White House Christmas parties.

He said being a Bush Pioneer or Ranger provides access but no guarantees from the President.

"I don't know any of them who are looking for anything in particular," Mr. Ceverha said. "They know they are going to get an audience when they go to Washington, not necessarily with the President, but with this senator or that senator, or this congressman."

As Texas's governor during the 1990s, Mr. Bush established a loyal following that included deep-pocketed political financiers by selling them on his straight-forward style of leadership and looking out for their interests in the statehouse, said Tom Smith of the Texas chapter of Public Citizen, a nonprofit public interest organization.

"The Texas Pioneers and Rangers learned through the Bush gubernatorial era that their investments would pay off, so they were more than willing to be leaders when Bush began to run for president," Mr. Smith said.

Pilgrim's poultry
Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim, the chairman of Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride, is adamant that his fund-raising activities aren't done for "selfish reasons."

"I do it, first of all, for what I believe is right and people I contribute to have the same philosophy I have," said Mr. Pilgrim, a Bush Pioneer. "You know, I'm a conservative. I believe in integrity. I believe in a minimum of regulations. I don't believe in high taxes."

Mr. Pilgrim, who founded his company 60 years ago, has seen it grow into the nation's second-largest poultry producer. Last year, the company posted more than $5 billion in sales.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, Mr. Pilgrim's business collected nearly $60 million from the federal government for selling poultry to the Agricultural Marketing Service, a government agency that assists farmers and provides food for the poor.

Mr. Pilgrim said he didn't know that his company had received federal money, but he characterized the federal payments as a "small number," considering his business does "$20 million a day."

He said he's only asked President Bush once for a favor - that he speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about stopping Russia's ban on the import of U.S. chickens. In May, 2002, President Bush spoke with Mr. Putin about the so-called "chicken war" - and the Russians eventually allowed the import of the U.S. products.

The discussions came after the two presidents signed a historic nuclear arms treaty at the Kremlin.

"President Putin and I also agree that we'll work to resolve disputed areas of trading, such as poultry or steel, in a spirit of mutual respect and trust," President Bush said at a news conference after the signing of the joint declaration.

Mr. Pilgrim, who said he requested Mr. Bush's intervention on behalf of the chicken industry, called the process "slow and even discouraging" at times.

"I think President Putin didn't have total control of many things down there in Russia, just like politicians here in America don't have total control," said Mr. Pilgrim, who added that Mr. Bush, his wife, Laura, and his two daughters, Jenna and Barbara, spent a night at his home while Mr. Bush was running for governor in Texas.

Defense and accounting
Of the more than $3 billion in federal contracts awarded to President Bush's key Texas fund-raisers and their lobbying clients, more than $1.7 billion went to the customers of Tom Loeffler, a lobbyist, former Texas congressman, and Bush Ranger.

Two of Mr. Loeffler's clients, American Management Systems and Motorola, collected the majority of the federal contract money. Motorola supplied security and communications products to the Department of Defense and other agencies, while American Management provided computer services to a number of agencies including the Coast Guard and Defense Department.

Mr. Loeffler's clients, in total, collected more than $960 million in Department of Defense contracts since Mr. Bush took office.

Julian Read, a spokesman for Mr. Loeffler, who is based in San Antonio, said the lobbying clients might have "gotten the contracts whether or not he was involved."

Adding that Mr. Loeffler has been a friend and supporter of the President for many years, Mr. Read said: "There are many, many factors involved in awarding contracts ... They probably don't have anything to do with lobbyists."

Besides chicken and defense contractors, the accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers also helped keep President Bush in the White House.

The firm last year lent two of its top executives, Carter Pate and Richard Kilgust, to the Bush campaign to raise money. The two men were so successful they were named Bush Rangers.

Pricewaterhouse has collected more than $353 million for accounting and auditing services from federal agencies since Mr. Bush took office in 2001.

To bolster its business with the government, the accounting firm in late October hired a business strategy firm, California-based SM&A, as an adviser.

Mr. Pate, a Texas resident and managing partner of Pricewaterhouse's Washington office, said in a statement: "SM&A's 22-year history of winning leadership in federal business capture made them the logical choice for moving forward with us."

A spokesman declined to comment on behalf of Mr. Pate and Mr. Kilgust, another senior partner with the accounting firm.

Kingdom of sugar
For miles and miles, the land along U.S. 27 through Florida's Broward and Palm Beach counties is barren, either under water, or black with a soil that locals call "muck."

But about six miles south of Lake Okeechobee, the smokestacks of the massive Florida Crystals refinery dominate the landscape, the smoke blending with the steel-gray sky.

And in the nearby town of Clewiston, which bills itself as "America's Sweetest Town,'' workers stream out of the U.S. Sugar Corp.'s refinery as rain falls on another humid, 75-degree day in December.

The federal and state governments call it the "Everglades Agricultural Area."

It is the kingdom of the sugar giants.

Two of President Bush's top Florida fund-raisers in 2004 were Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, president of Florida Crystals Corp., and Robert Edward Coker, senior vice president of U.S. Sugar.

The sugar industry and developers have profited under President Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in part by gutting the purpose of the federal Everglades Restoration Act, said Jonathan Ullman, Everglades field representative for the Sierra Club.

The law was signed in 2000 by President Bill Clinton.

Under the Bush Administration:

The Army Corps of Engineers has weakened the rules governing the proposed restoration of the Everglades, in part by restricting the Department of Interior's oversight power.

In 2002, the federal government gave the green light to rock-mining companies that want to destroy about 20,000 acres of wetlands. Environmental groups, saying the mining would contaminate groundwater, have sued.

Two years ago, at the request of Florida sugar companies and several lobbyists they hired, Governor Bush signed a bill into law to amend the state's Everglades Forever Act, which has set a 2006 deadline for the cleanup of phosphorus. Governor Bush signed legislation that delayed the planned cleanup of phosphorous pollution from the sugar industry by another 10 years.

The administrations of both President Bush and Governor Bush have allowed residential development on land environmentalists say is needed to restore the Everglades. Critics also say the administrations have not provided enough money for a proposal to replace a roadway in Miami-Dade County with an 11-mile elevated skyway that would allow for natural flow of water into Everglades National Park.
In 2000, Mr. Coker and Mr. Fanjul were at Governor Bush's side at Everglades National Park when he signed legislation into law implementing the federal Everglades Restoration Act.

"There are certain milestones in our careers and lives where everything comes together, and we recognize that we have actually done something of lasting importance,'' Governor Bush said at the time.

The Sierra Club had generally supported the $8 billion blueprint, but the group now only supports parts of it.

"We could see that both Bush administrations in Tallahassee and Washington were abandoning the plan and it was being turned into a water-supply project for the benefit of developers, specifically sprawl development," said Mr. Ullman, the group's Everglades field representative in Miami.

Russell Schweiss, Governor Bush's senior press secretary, rejected the charge and said environmental groups have distorted the governor's record.

"It is abundantly clear that Everglades restoration is one of his top priorities, based solely on the investment he has committed to the project. A lot of the governor's critics have argued that it is simply to get water for South Florida, but the fact is you can't restore the Everglades without providing a better water source to South Florida," said Mr. Schweiss, who added that phosphorous levels have declined in the Everglades during Governor Bush's tenure.

Three Florida Bush Rangers - Al Austin, Alfred Hoffman, Jr., and H. Gary Morse - served on Governor Bush's Council of 100, a business advisory group which in 2003 recommended that water from rural northern parts of the state be moved to urban areas in the south. Because of extensive opposition, Governor Bush has shelved the recommendation.

Mr. Hoffman, chairman of one of the state's largest development firms, was the council's chairman. In 2004, he was national co-chairman and Florida finance chairman for President Bush's re-election campaign. President Bush in July nominated him as ambassador to Portugal.

Mr. Austin, a Tampa-based developer, was a fund-raiser for Governor Bush's 1998 campaign.

Mr. Morse is a developer who gave more than $80,000 to the Florida Republican Party when Jeb Bush ran successfully for governor in 1998.

Another Florida Bush fund-raiser, attorney C. David Brown - a Pioneer in 2000 and a Ranger in 2004 - helped convince the Scripps Research Institute of California to locate a biotech research center on a 1,920-acre site in Palm Beach County near the Everglades.

Governor Bush has supported the project. It is on hold, in part, because a federal judge said the Army Corps of Engineers should have conducted a comprehensive environmental review of whether the institute could use the site.

Mr. Brown's law firm received about $200,000 from the state of Florida for working on the project.

Development of the land, now covered with orange groves, would damage the Everglades, the Sierra Club's Mr. Ullman said.

Energy industry
President Bush faced criticism when he was governor of Texas for aiding his financial supporters.

Critics charged that his hands-off approach to the state's booming energy industry was because he was beholden to oil and energy interests, which had provided millions of dollars for his campaigns.

Tom Smith of the Texas chapter of Public Citizen said recently that Mr. Bush had a record in Texas of deregulating utilities and allowing polluters to police themselves - policies which would foreshadow the actions he would take in the White House.

"His attempts to forgive utilities on every turn can only be figured out in the context of its payback for their help in his election," Mr. Smith said.

After his election in 2000, President Bush assembled an energy transition team that included a number of Bush fund-raisers, such as former Enron executive Ken Lay, a 2000 Pioneer, and Erle Nye, a 2004 Pioneer and the former chairman of TXU, a large Texas energy company.

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, TXU has collected more than $147 million in federal contracts for supplying gas and electric services to several agencies, including the Department of Defense. On Dec. 5, 2001, the Defense Logistics Agency authorized a $71 million contract to TXU for fuel oils. TXU also received a $600 million tax refund in 2003, according to the company's official filings.

During President Clinton's eight years in office, TXU received $69 million in federal contracts.

Mr. Nye, who left TXU earlier this year, could not be reached for comment. Mr. Nye was appointed by Mr. Bush to serve on the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.

Charles Beggs Moncrief of Moncrief Oil in Fort Worth, another Bush Pioneer, said he's never asked for any favors from the Bush Administration.

Mr. Moncrief said being a Bush fund-raiser "obviously" could help someone gain access.

"That works whether you are a Republican or a Democrat," he said.

Mr. Moncrief's father, W.A. "Tex" Moncrief, the longtime owner of Moncrief Oil and a major Republican contributor, said he believes one of the "big reasons" Mr. Bush decided to invade Iraq was oil. And the decision, he said, will pay dividends for the U.S. oil market.

"The Iraq situation doesn't look good, but my honest opinion is that if we hadn't gone into Iraq, then we would be in worse shape with the oil situation," he said. "The Iraqis probably would have gone into Saudi Arabia and certainly gotten into a squabble with Iran or taken them over and have a lock on all of the oil, which they don't have now."

Money: a loud voice
Texas is "a prime example of money running things," said Fred Lewis, an Austin-based attorney and leader of Clean Up Texas Politics.

"Those that give money do well," he said. "Money speaks pretty loud down here on all sorts of issues, whether it's consumer rights, environmental issues."

The same is true in Florida, where the leading sugar companies have held on to their "enormous power" by contributing millions of dollars to federal and state candidates, said Nancy Watzman, senior analyst for Public Campaign, which advocates public financing of political races.

In 1992, Alfonso "Alfy" Fanjul, an executive with Florida Crystals Corp., was co-chairman of Mr. Clinton's presidential campaign in Florida.

Four years later, his brother, "Pepe," was national vice chairman of finance for Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, the former Senate GOP leader from Kansas.

After Vice President Al Gore suggested that a tax on sugar producers could help pay for Everglades restoration, "Alfy" Fanjul called President Clinton on Feb. 19, 1996.

Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern who was having an affair with Mr. Clinton, was in the Oval Office at the time and later told investigators that someone named "Fanuli" had called while she was there. White House phone records showed that the caller was "Alfy" Fanjul.

Mr. Gore's sugar-tax proposal never moved forward.

Also that year, J. Nelson Fairbanks, the president and CEO of U.S. Sugar, led a successful effort to block a proposed state sugar tax.

In 2000, Mr. Fairbanks attained Bush Pioneer status, and when he retired in 2003, Robert Edward Coker, a senior vice president, took his place as a Bush fund-raiser.

"If you wanted to have a textbook example of a business interest that has learned how to work the system by giving campaign money, these folks would be near the top of the list,'' said Ms. Watzman of Public Campaign. "They know how to play the money and politics game to the max."

Michael M. Boone, a Bush Ranger and co-founder of the Dallas-based law firm Haynes and Boone, said contributors who expect paybacks from the White House for campaign contributions are not unique to Republicans.

"I'm sure a lot of people supported Clinton in hopes that they could get something in exchange ... and I'm sure there's somebody like that for George Bush," he said, adding that he's never asked for any favors.

"Knowing George Bush, I would never, ever trade on anything with him because I think he'd throw me out of his office. He is as clean as I can think of as a person on that kind of issue."

Kerry backers still feel sting of losing 2004 presidential contest
By CHRISTOPHER D. KIRKPATRICK and MIKE WILKINSON
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
Third of three parts


New Orleans trial lawyer Calvin Fayard has watched his city rebuild these past four months, but he sees another dangerous tide rising, one that threatens his legal profession.

This threat is more subtle - the Bush Administration's encroachment on the rights of plaintiffs and lawyers to file environmental lawsuits against companies working to clean up hurricane-damaged areas along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans. Fear of a completely different tragedy has prompted the GOP-controlled Congress to consider offering the same lawsuit shield to drug makers working on bird flu vaccine in anticipation of a widespread flu outbreak.

The Bush battle against trial lawyers is part of the reason why Mr. Fayard spent time raising money for John Kerry and was listed as a Vice Chair by the campaign for raising at least $50,000 for the Massachusetts senator's 2004 presidential bid. It wasn't enough for victory, and now Mr. Fayard, labor unions, and other Democrats are feeling the sting of defeat.



"I agree that each party tries to maintain the best for its constituent base, and it all goes back to the platform of the party. With Democrats, it's policies that are more to the lawyer end," Mr. Fayard said of his fund-raising. "I thought John Kerry was the best man for the job."

For trial lawyers, laws enacted in these past five Bush years, and other GOP-sponsored proposals, squarely target their profession.

Hospitals, nursing home chains, and insurance companies have spent millions lobbying elected officials and the public for tort reform, painting trial lawyers as the reason for increased insurance premiums and as a danger to the health-care system.

"The other side has spent decades and billions of dollars to get the public to believe a story that isn't true, but they've told the story [about trial lawyers] for a reason, and the efforts have been funded by tobacco and big corporations. Those are the Bush supporters," said Chris Mather, spokesman for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

Tort reform partly explains why 152, or 27 percent, of Mr. Kerry's 563 top fund-raisers, dubbed Vice Chairs and Chairs, are listed as lawyers. They raised at least $50,000 each for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Mr. Kerry's running mate, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, is a millionaire contingency-fee trial lawyer by trade.

The number contrasts to the 32 lawyers, or 6 percent, on Mr. Bush's list of 548 Pioneers and Rangers, those who raised at least $100,000 or $200,000, respectively, for his re-election campaign.

The American Tort Reform Association supports measures that would cap jury awards. The association argues that insurance companies have to know their liabilities so they can accurately set premiums, said Gretchen Schaefer, spokesman for the organization.

"There's nothing that's been proposed that would hurt anyone's right to a fair trial," she said. "There's a huge access-to-health-care issue [in this country]."

The group created a Web site to track the support coming from trial lawyers to the Edwards campaign for president, which he eventually abandoned to be Mr. Kerry's running mate.

"They would have passed a pro-litigation, anti-business agenda," Ms. Schaefer said of a successful Edwards ticket.

Over five years in the White House, President Bush has championed measures that would shield certain corporations from lawsuits. They include:

¡ñThe HEALTH Act of 2003, (which stands for Help Efficient, Accessible, Low Cost, Timely Health care). It passed the House last year. The bill, supported by the President, would cap some pain-and-suffering jury awards at $250,000. The legislation would provide a sliding scale for lawyer's fees.

¡ñLegislation that would require successful lawsuits against drug makers of bird flu vaccines to prove the higher standard of "willful misconduct" and not just negligence.

¡ñThe Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which provides immunity in most cases for gun makers from lawsuits holding them responsible for gun violence. President Bush signed the bill in October.

¡ñThe Asbestos Trust Fund bill, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), would establish a fund to reimburse those suffering from exposure to asbestos and halt litigation. Lawyers and organized labor oppose the move, saying the fund would not have enough money.

"Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back by irresponsible class-actions and frivolous asbestos claims - and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year," the President said in his Feb. 2 State of Union address.

¡ñThe Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, which was signed by President Bush in February. It moves most class-action suits to federal court. It's legislative sponsors say the bill was designed to prevent outrageous legal fees that sap awards for plaintiffs. Lawyers argue that federal court is costly and that most class-actions involve state issues.

Mr. Fayard said trials at the federal level are more costly and time-consuming. Trial lawyers are losing money, but Mr. Fayard claimed it's about fairness and the sanctity of the legal process.

Corporations, which often pay hourly legal fees, can afford such delays; some plaintiff's and their lawyers, who work on a contingency-fee basis, cannot, he said.

"There are always two sides to an issue. If one side has an advantage by paying more fees up front on a regular basis and the other side cannot go out and hire competent counsel, then it sometimes dictates the result," he said. "We are in an adversarial position. We shake hands, but some side is going to win, and some side is going to lose."

Tort reform battle
Tort reform, from a public relations standpoint, helped frame the 2004 presidential campaigns. Though not as large an issue financially as others, such as the debate over health-care coverage, it came to symbolize for Democrats the battle of working class versus corporate executives. For Republicans, it became a canvas for painting trial lawyers and unions as greedy, causing insurance premiums and health-care costs to rise.

Trial lawyers and union officials often cited the issue and came out for Mr. Kerry. Mr. Edwards portrayed his past legal work, which reaped him tens of millions in fees, as protecting the defenseless against corporate misdeeds.

Kerry support and support for all Democratic federal candidates, in pure dollars, came in large measure from unions and lawyers-lobbyists. Unions represent a political sector lobbying for sweeping policy changes, such as instituting universal health-care programs and increasing the minimum wage. In his campaign, Mr. Kerry proposed increasing the wage by 36 percent from $5.15 to $7 an hour.

Under the Bush Administration, the proposal has not moved, and Mr. Bush's centerpiece economic legislation, the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, has been criticized from the left as a pro-business tax giveaway, including a tax deduction for manufacturers and corporate tax breaks totaling $145 billion.

In the 2004 campaign cycle, labor gave $53.6 million or 87 percent of its federal contributions to Democrats, and about 13 percent to the GOP candidates. Lawyers and lobbyists gave $135.2 million or 74 percent to Democrats and $45.8 million or 25 percent to Republicans at the federal level.

Hollywood under attack
The trial lawyers are not alone in feeling put upon by a Bush victory. Some industries, such as entertainment, feared censorship from the right. They are traditionally at odds with the GOP, though not always, over violence in films. Rob Friedman, vice chairman of Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures, raised enough money to be on Mr. Kerry's list of top fund-raisers. A slew of actors raised money for Mr. Kerry.

Under President Bush's tenure, CBS Entertainment, owned by Viacom, came under fire for Janet Jackson's so-called "wardrobe malfunction" that exposed her right breast at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The Federal Communications Commission leveled a record $550,000 fine.

Under Mr. Bush, Paramount and other movie companies were facing increased taxes because of the President's American Jobs Creation Act of 2004.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) objected to a part of the draft bill that would have forced Hollywood to change to a "unified accounting system," adding a $5 billion tax burden over 10 years. The bill, originally meant to bring U.S. international tax law in line with World Trade Organization rules, was criticized by Democrats as a bevy of corporate tax breaks. It gives NASCAR track owners tax breaks for improvements and temporarily suspends tariffs for Home Depot on imported Chinese ceiling fans, among other initiatives.

"This is especially egregious given the fact ... the film industry was not even involved in the unfair trade practices that led the WTO to declare that U.S. international tax rules were unfair," she wrote in a letter to President Bush. The bill was amended.

Media giants hedge bets
Hollywood usually offers Democrats support. But larger media, outside of film, often are cagier about support.

More high-powered media executives than usual came out in support of the Democratic presidential candidate last year, perhaps to reduce Howard Dean's chances, industry and political analysts said. Mr. Dean, who is now chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he might try to break up major media conglomerates.

Media executives, including brass from Time Warner and Viacom, were Kerry Chairs and Vice Chairs. Former Time Warner Vice Chairman Ken Novack and DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg and his wife, Marilyn, were on Mr. Kerry's list of top campaign bundlers.

Entertainment heavyweights on the list included Jonathan Dolgen, the now-former chairman of Viacom Entertainment Group, Nancy Tellem, president of CBS Entertainment, and James Gianopulis and Tom Rothman, co-chairmen of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom, gave money early to Mr. Kerry's campaign. But he caused controversy when he endorsed the President.

"I look at the election from what's good for Viacom. I vote for what's good for Viacom. I vote, today, Viacom," he was reported as saying in Beijing at a CEO conference.

Making the best of things
In New Orleans, Mr. Fayard has been professionally untouched, he said. His work focuses on railroad companies. But a couple of days after the hurricane, he met New Orleans evacuees in Baton Rouge. He learned of their insurance plight.

The lawyer and several colleagues, free of charge, asked a court to rule "that the high water in Orleans and Jefferson Parish, which flooded thousands of homes, is caused by man-made neglect and wind damage rather than a so-called 'Act of God.'¡ñ"

With such a definition, insurance companies would have to pay claims. The case is pending. The New Orleans flooding resulted from errors in engineering and federal policy, he said.

"That was a man-made flood."

Staff writer Joshua Boak contributed to this report

I know it's a long read but well worth it. Discuss...




on a side note this will probably be one of my last war forum posts, I sense a ban cloud hovering overhead . Nice debating with y'all.

Holy CRAP! Long doesn't begin to cover it. I skimed I won't lie, exeryone knows the reps are more big business oriented then the dems unfortunatly had the dems put someone up woth voteing in above Bush they would be there now.

I just hope some better people imerge in 08.




Semper Fi SAINT. May you rest in peace.

Bump

Spike, not to be a whiner, but you need Cliff's notes for that one man...



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

in '04, he was the lesser of two evils I believe.
and I'm a firm believer in if you give corporations more money, they're going to spend it in order to compete, and that means more jobs. more jobs equals more money spent, which means a better economy.
but then again, I'm no political science major.


Desert Tuners

“When you come across a big kettle of crazy, it’s best not to stir it.”

GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:Spike, not to be a whiner, but you need Cliff's notes for that one man...

x2.
I dont think anyone is going to read the whole thing..

Holy crap! The Unibombers manifesto wasn't that long!!!

So let's see if I have the point... Bush is doing exactly the same crooked stuff as every other elected official since the origin of politics. Am I missing something from the 40 screens of scroll bar?




John Wilken
2002 Cavalier
2.2 Vin code 4
Auto

Holy Mr. Holland's Opus Batman!

I read the bold parts