Just 48 wealthy TX families paid >50% campaign costs GOP key races

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

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 12/23


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/page1/1711664

Dec. 22, 2002, 3:25PM


Wealthy few helped GOP's state sweep
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2002 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.

more...........

[barbaraann]

1. It looks like it's been scrubbed.

The link leads to a page that says "No such article."

[Eloriel]

2. Yup, yo're right. Now isn't THAT interesting?

That's a story in itself.

Eloriel

[Wapsie B]

3. Maybe those wealthy elitists

are part of the Octopus.

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

4. well it is an old article....more excerpts......

since its no longer online....

here's some more excerpts -

...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."

Chronicle editorial assistant Amy Raskin contributed to this report.

[madfloridian]

5. Found this one at google, same article I think.

http://www.usnewslink.com/firstamendmentland.htm

[Yupster]

7. Interesting ;link - thanks

To me the most important numbers on there were individual donors to Republicans (8,095), and to Democrats (2,901). This is a discrepency that appears in every race. I give Howard Dean tremendous credit for making a change to this.

If Dean is the nominee, for the first time Democrats may have as many dodnors as Republicans. They certainly should.

It's not just the money though the money is important. When a person donates to a campaign, he's more likely to vote, to talk up the candidate, to volunteer. The person buys a bit of ownership of the campaign. I think even the $ 10 contributions matter, and that's where the Democrats have been getting their asses kicked forever.

Also the list of which companies support which party was interesting, as well as the companies which supported both sides. Coke and Pepsi were both Republicans supporters, while Microsoft split. Also interesting was just the total domination unions have in Democratic fundraising. Their list just looked like a list of national unions, dozens of them.

Lastly, you can see why Tony Sanchez looked like an attractive candidate for the Democrats. He was able to pour tremendous amounts of his personal wealth into the race. His numbers aren't on the list though.

[Skittles]

6. ONLY HALF ???

I find that quite surprising.