Cheney shoot-victim Whittington replaced Funeralgate whistleblower in '99

[StefanX]

In 1999, Bush named Austin lawyer Harry Whittington (shot this weekend by Dick Cheney) to be the new director of Texas State Funeral Commission after a major shakeup in which the former director, Eliza May, was fired while investigating accusations of grave-dumping by SCI, the largest funeral-home operator in the world, headed by Robert Waltrip, a longtime Bush friend and major campaign contributor.

In 1999, while Bush was still Governor of Texas, he appointed Austin lawyer Harry Whittington to replace Eliza May as head of the Texas State Funeral Commission (TSFC) after a major shakeup in which she was fired while investigating accusations of grave desecration by a cemetery company owned by a longtime Bush friend. Ms. May later filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit alleging that she had been fired because her agency had been investigating allegations that a major Bush contributor, Houston-based SCI (Service Corporation International, the largest funeral-home operator in the world, burying 1 in every 9 Americans) had been desecrating graves to save money. Bush, under oath, denied ordering his aides to pressure Ms. May to drop the investigation into his friends at SCI, but his testimony was contradicted by four other sworn witnesses. She later received a $210,000 out-of-court settlement.

The problems with SCI included a big lawsuit accusing the company of "recycling" bodies in several Jewish cemeteries it owned in the Palm Beach, Florida area, cramming new cadavers into existing graves, or digging up the dead and tossing their bones into the woods nearby. In late 2001 the media briefly reported on "Funeralgate" when Peter Hartmann, an SCI funeral operator from Boca Raton who had been brought in to clean up the funeral scandal, was found dead in his garage of carbon monoxide poisoning. Hartmann was a devout Catholic and devoted family man who was described by a co-worker as a very upright person who "always tried to do the right thing". His death was ruled suicide by the local police department.

In a separate story, last week Whittington won round three of a legal battle against the city of Austin, Texas, which had recently used the new "eminent domain" laws to seize a block his family has owned since 1980 in downtown Austin and build a garage on it.

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Harry Whittington (above), the Austin lawyer Cheney "accidentally" shot, replaced Eliza May as head of the Texas Funeral Safety Commission in 1999, after she had been fired in the middle of investigating accusations of grave-dumping by Houston-based SCI, the largest funeral-home operator in the world and a major contributor to then-Governor George W. Bush.


Katharine Armstrong (above), a Bush-Cheney fundraiser and daughter of one of the folks who hired Cheney at Halliburton, was the first to tip off the media that Cheney had shot Austin lawyer Harry Whittington at her 'ranch'. Nearly 24 hours after the incident took place, she called Jaime Powell, a local reporter at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times with whom she has a "strong source relationship". The White House never bothered to bring up this incident -- a Cheney spokesperson merely "confirmed" it after getting a phone call from the Corpus Christi reporter who was tipped off by Armstrong.

Armstrong, the fundraiser-eyewitness, told the AP that the gunfire "broke the skin. It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."

Although Armstrong claimed the victim Whittington "was fine", he is still in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Corpus Christi.

It is pretty much universally understood among hunters that "when hunting with a small group of people, you keep a clear mental picture of where your fellow hunters are at every moment. Based on that mental picture of where people are, you create a safe fire area, a range in front of you covering some number of degrees where you know no one else is."

Because these well-known safety guidelines are in place, hunters also agree that if someone shoots a person while hunting, the shooter is always at fault. However, Katherine Armstrong's carefully phrased statements to the media flew in the face of these guidelines: instead of blaming the shooter, she blamed the victim, saying Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself."

In order to shoot Whittington, who Armstrong stated "came up from behind" Cheney, the vice president did not shoot in the "safe fire area, a range in front of you covering some number of degrees where you know no one else is." Instead, Cheney had to swing around and do a 180 in order to hit Whittington.

It is also highly unusual that the White House and Cheney's office made no attempt to communicate this incident to the press, and it is unclear whether news of this would ever have gotten out if Katherine Armstrong hadn't personally contacted her reporter friend at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Cheney spokesperson Lee Anne McBride would not comment on whether the White House would ever have released the information had the Caller-Times not contacted them for confirmation. "I'm not going to speculate," she said, according to Jaime Powell.


This delay in releasing information recalls another incident from October 2003, when 62-year old Bertha Champagne (above), who worked as a babysitter and maid for W's brother Marvin Bush (who had just been put in charge of security at NY's World Trade Centers shortly before the 9/11 attacks), was mysteriously found dead in Marvin's driveway. The story didn't get reported until 6 days later and it only showed up in one paper -- Washington Post. The official police report stated that she was crushed to death against a wall by a her own vehicle which somehow accidentally slipped its brakes.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=bertha+marvin+bush+driveway&btnG=Search


Eliza May (above), former head of Texas State Funeral Commission, was plaintiff against then-Gov. George W. Bush in a wrongful-termination lawsuit claiming that she had been fired as head of the Texas Funeral Safety Commission because she refused to stifle an investigation into accusations of grave-dumping in several Jewish cemeteries around Palm Beach (Florida) owned by SCI, a top Bush contributor. The lawsuit was later settled out of court; Ms. May was replaced by lawyer Harry Whittington (the man Cheney "accidentally" shot on Saturday); and an SCI funeral-home director in Boca Raton called in to clean up the funeral scandal was later found dead in his garage of carbon monoxide poisoning in a little-reported case sometimes referred to as "Funeralgate".

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More Questions Raised About Delay in Reporting Cheney Misfire
By Greg Mitchell -- Editor & Publisher -- 12 February 2006

In another bit of intrigue, The New York Times reported late Sunday that Whittington was commissioner of the state's Funeral Service Commission. In 1999, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, named Whittington to head the Commission, which licenses and regulates funeral directors and embalmers in the state. "When he was named," The Times revealed, "a former executive director of the commission, Eliza May, was suing the state, saying that she had been fired because she investigated a funeral home chain that was owned by a friend of Mr. Bush."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995719

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Funeralgate
The Skeleton in Bush's Closet that won't go away

Here's a new chapter in an old scandal involving a Bush contributor and longtime family friend, Robert Waltrip. This time it's the desecration of dead bodies, and George W. Bush is directly linked to this scandal (as is former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, GW's Chief of Staff while governor of Texas). According to Fox News, Waltrip's company, a cemetery company called Service Corporation International (also known as Dignity Memorial) was "recycling" graves, removing the bodies that were there originally and throwing them in the woods to use the space to house new customers at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida.

http://www.hereinreality.com/funeralgate.htm

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Gruesome Photos, Video Show Bodies Discarded in Woods Behind Cemetery
Associated Press -- December 20, 2001

Attorneys suing a cemetery company accused of recycling graves showed grisly photos and video footage Thursday of crushed burial vaults and human remains discarded in the woods.

They also presented internal documents they say show Menorah Gardens & Funeral Chapels in West Palm Beach and its owner, Houston-based Service Corporation International, were aware of the grave desecrations. SCI is the world's largest cemetery company.
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The state attorney general's office is investigating Menorah Gardens and four other South Florida cemeteries owned by SCI.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41298,00.html

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Ex-funeral agency chief settles suit
By George Kuempel -- The Dallas Morning News -- November 9, 2001

A former state funeral home regulator who said she was wrongfully fired for investigating a large funeral home chain {SCI -- the largest funeral-home chain in the world} operated by a longtime family friend of George W. Bush has settled her 2-year-old whistleblower lawsuit for $210,000.

The state {taxpayers} will pay Eliza May and her lawyers $155,000 and Houston-based Service Corp. International will pay $55,000, said sources familiar with the agreement.

Ms. May contended in her lawsuit that she was fired in 1999 as executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission after SCI Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Waltrip met with Joe Allbaugh, a top aide to Mr. Bush while he was governor, to complain about the agency's investigation of the company's homes.

After the investigation, fines totaling about $450,000 were assessed against more than 20 of SCI's affiliated funeral homes for using unlicensed embalmers.
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Harry Whittington of Austin, who was named presiding officer of the Funeral Service Commission after a major shakeup of agency in 1999, said his board reluctantly agreed to pay $50,000 as part of the settlement to end the 2-year-old case.
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While governor, Mr. Bush had dismissed the lawsuit as "frivolous" and filed a statement saying he "had no conversations with SCI officials, agents or representatives concerning the investigation or any dispute arising from it."

But Newsweek reported that Mr. Bush had briefly appeared in a meeting that Mr. Allbaugh was holding in his state office with Mr. Waltrip and SCI lawyer Johnnie B. Rogers of Austin.

Mr. Rogers was quoted by the magazine as saying that Mr. Bush addressed Mr. Waltrip, saying, "Hey, Bobby, are those people still messing with you?"

According to the magazine, when Mr. Waltrip responded "Yes," the governor turned his attention to Mr. Rogers. The magazine quoted Mr. Rogers as saying that Mr. Bush said, "Hey, Johnnie B., are you taking care of him?"
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Mr. Allbaugh went on to manage Mr. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and is director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

http://www.bushwatch.com/gravedigger.htm

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Burying the Past
Funeral Board Resurrected
By Robert Bryce -- The Austin Chronicle -- September 3, 1999

It's been a tumultuous week for the Texas Funeral Service Commission. On Monday, Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz ruled that Gov. George W. Bush won't have to testify in Eliza May's whistle-blower lawsuit against the agency. On Tuesday, the old TFSC board was dismissed. On Wednesday, the new board, headed by Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, took over the struggling agency.
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Dietz's ruling is the latest development in the whistle-blower lawsuit filed six months ago by May, a former treasurer of the Texas Democratic Party. May sued the state, Houston-based SCI, and SCI's CEO Robert Waltrip, alleging that she was fired after she and other agency employees found numerous violations of state law by the company's funeral homes. As a result of the investigations done by May, the agency recommended that SCI be fined $445,000.

May, who was fired by the TFSC's board in February, claims that state legislators and Bush's office interfered with her agency's investigation in order to help SCI, the world's largest funeral company. Waltrip is a longtime friend of the Bush family and has contributed at least $45,000 to Bush's political campaigns; CNN reported recently that Waltrip and his associates have contributed nearly $62,000 to Bush's campaign.

http://www.bestofaustin.com/issues/dispatch/1999-09-03/pols_feature3.html

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Funeralgate: Bush Charged With Lying Under Oath About Influence-Peddling
By Roses Prichard

How many voters knew that President Bush is credibly charged with lying under oath about influence-peddling in a whistle-blower lawsuit that's scheduled for trial this year? {2000} Known as Funeralgate, Eliza May's wrongful termination lawsuit also questions the credibility of Bush's nominee to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Joe Allbaugh, formerly his campaign manager
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May, the fired executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, charges that Gov. Bush lied under oath in an affidavit when he flatly denied that he had spoken to anyone involved about a regulatory crackdown her agency instituted against one of his major political contributors - or that he even had any knowledge of the facts of the matter. His sworn affidavit has already been contradicted at least four times, including by conflicting testimony from one of his appointees in a deposition taken on Oct. 17. May has informed the court (on page 89 of her July 10 filing) that "multiple witnesses have testified or otherwise indicated that Governor Bush gave a false sworn statement in this case."
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Learning exactly what Bush swore and exactly how his affidavit has been contradicted would have caused voters to question Bush's claim to moral superiority. Arguably, the withholding of that basic information from the electorate and the failure of the press to ask Bush to explain his side of the story amounts to the elite media having thrown a presidential election.
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May contends that Bush and his staff impeded her investigation of the world's largest chain of funeral homes, Service Corporation International, whose founder and CEO, Robert Waltrip, is a bountiful supporter of the Bush family. The tough-talking Houston tycoon, whose mortuaries are said to bury one in nine Americans, contributed $45,000 to Governor Bush and over $100,000 to the Bush presidential library, as well as providing a $70,000 honorarium for a speech by President Bush, the use of his corporate jet, and other generosities.
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After receiving information about the use of unlicensed embalmers, May launched an investigation of SCI mortuaries, including surprise inspections. The TFSC inspectors allegedly found that unlicensed embalmers had been employed - with macabre results. Complaints were subsequently filed about gruesomely inept embalmings - including a protest by anguished parents that their son's body "leaked maroon fluid" and drew gnats. Presented for open viewing, a man's body had been so over-pumped with embalming fluid that it was oozing from his eyes, ears and mouth - causing his younger brother to run away screaming, "That's not my brother!" Enraged by May's "raids" and demands for records, Waltrip exercised what his spokesman called his "constitutional right" to take his protests "up the ladder" to Gov. Bush.
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May alleges that she was ... pressured by Bush aides to back off. According to her lawsuit against Bush, Waltrip, SCI, and the TFSC, on May 18, 1998 she was summoned to the office of Joe Allbaugh, then Gov. Bush's chief of staff, for an intimidating meeting with Waltrip.
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On July 20, 1999, in an affidavit intended to persuade the court to reject May's request to depose him, Gov. Bush swore: "I have had no conversations with Texas Funeral Services Commission officials, agents or representatives concerning the investigation of SCI by the Texas Funeral Services Commission or any dispute arising from it. I have had no conversations with SCI officials, agents, or representatives concerning the investigation or any dispute arising from it. I have no personal knowledge of relevant facts of the investigation nor do I have any personal knowledge of relevant facts concerning any dispute arising from this investigation. I have never asked anyone to take a role or to become involved in any way in this investigation or any dispute arising from it or given direction to anyone who might be involved in the SCI investigation or dispute."
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The latest contradiction of Bush's affidavit comes from one of Bush's appointees, Charles 'Dick' McNeil, a former chairman of the funeral commission, who testified in a deposition taken on Oct. 17 that in the fall of 1998 Bush briefly inquired about the agency's "problems" with SCI. McNeil swore that during a short conversation Bush said, "Have you got - you and Bob Waltrip - are you and Mr. Waltrip got your problems worked out?" After McNeil answered that they were still trying to work on it, and added, "I hope that we have not been an embarrassment to you or any of this administration," he says the governor said he wasn't an embarrassment to him and told him, "Do your job."
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Potentially, it appears that May's lawsuit about funerals gone dreadfully wrong could be a far more serious matter than the Paula Jones case since it involves allegations of influence-peddling and a cover-up of serious official misdeeds rather than personal misconduct. As the Austin Chronicle's Robert Bryce put it, "the most disturbing part of this mess is that at no time did Bush, Allbaugh, SCI, Cornyn, or Whitmire act on behalf of, or show any concern for, Texas consumers. Instead they acted to protect the fat cats. That's the scandal."

http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=1292

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Chris Floyd: 'Tomb raiders: corporate greed, politics, and a questionable death'
By Chris Floyd -- The Moscow Times -- January 11, 2002

It was the night after Christmas on Florida's eastern shore. A tepid rain was falling as a couple of county lawmen pushed up the garage door at a ranch house on Sugar Pine Drive, just outside Boca Raton. They stood back for a minute to let the fumes spill out, a few remaining shreds of the poison cloud that had done its work hours ago. The car was no longer running. Behind the wheel -- just as they'd expected after getting the wife's frantic phone call half an hour before -- was the body of Peter K. Hartmann, regional manager for Service Corporation International, or SCI.

"The funeral guy," said one of the deputies, then went to call for the meat wagon.

SCI, based in Houston, is one of a handful of international corporations that have gobbled up the funeral industry in recent years, squeezing out independent operators in hardball takeovers. ...

The company had been all over the local news recently: It had just been hit with a big lawsuit, accusing it of "recycling" bodies in several Jewish cemeteries it owned in the Palm Beach area -- cramming new cadavers into existing graves, or digging up the dead and tossing their bones and tattered burial shrouds into the woods nearby. A few outraged mourners brought the initial suit, but there were hundreds more getting ready to join it.

The funny thing was, Hartmann had not been directly implicated in the scandal. He was a local wheel for SCI, sure, but the cemeteries in question were not in his territory. In fact, he had been brought in to help clean up the mess, and had apparently gathered a good deal of information on the gruesome goings-on. He was known as a straight arrow, a devout Catholic and devoted family man. "He's about as upright a person as that company's ever had working for them," a former co-worker told the Miami Herald. "He would certainly have always tried to do the right thing.''

Hartmann's wife said he'd been upset by the grisly allegations; perhaps the company's response had rattled him as well. The mourners had videotapes of bones and shrouds scattered in the bushes, they had sworn statements from cemetery workers who'd dug up bodies on SCI's orders; but the company said the remains were just animal bones -- deer, alligators, wild boars. It blamed any "overbooking" of graves on the small firm it had squeezed out when it took over the cemeteries -- seven years before. SCI was going to stonewall it, fight it out. And the company could afford to: it had deep pockets -- and the very highest political connections in the land.

Just a few weeks before, SCI had settled a potentially explosive lawsuit that could have meant major trouble for the company and its co-defendant -- a certain George W. Bush. That case began in 1998, with the Texas State Funeral Commission investigating some "shortcuts" used by the company to maximize profits. Grieving families had reported noxious fluids leaking from their loved ones' crypts; word was that SCI was using unlicensed embalmers to churn out corpses on the cheap.

... SCI chairman Bob Waltrip had long been a major cash conduit for the George Bushes, father and son. So he just called on his old friend, Lil' Dubya -- then the governor of Texas. Bush commiserated with his financial patron: "Bobby, are those people still messing with you?" He turned the case over to his chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh.

Over the next several weeks, Allbaugh and other senior Bush aides leaned on Funeral Commission chairman Eliza May to end the probe. She persisted, and the commission eventually fined SCI $450,000 for its desecrations. The company refused to pay -- and May was fired a few months later, after she began looking into SCI's campaign contributions to state officials.

She {Eliza May, later replaced by the lawyer Cheney recently shot, Harry Whittington} filed a "whistleblower" suit against the company and its official protectors. Bush gave a sworn statement that he'd never discussed the case with Waltrip, despite eyewitness testimony that he had -- from SCI's own lawyer. A long war of legal attrition ensued, with SCI and the state of Texas lining up against May.

Finally, last November, in the looming shadow of Bush's bourgeoning imperial power, May accepted an out-of-court settlement of $210,000. The president paid nothing, of course. Texas taxpayers bore the brunt of the costs, while SCI chipped in $55,000 -- chump change for the self-proclaimed "global leader in the death care industry," filling its Houston coffers with $2.5 billion a year from funeral homes and crematoriums on five continents.

So that's SCI: hard-wired, with hard cash, into the Washington power grid. It certainly wouldn't let a few dead Jews and their misplaced bones derail the "death care" gravy train.

The weekend before Christmas, Hartmann was summoned to a meeting with Houston honchos, who'd flown in for an emergency strategy session on the Florida case. We don't know what was said at that meeting, what facts were revealed. We don't know what Hartmann was told to do, or not to do. We don't know what he agreed to do, or refused to do. We don't know if he indeed "tried to do the right thing," whatever that might have been.

We just know that three days later, on the night after Christmas, the deputies found him dead, in a company car, in the garage on Sugar Pine Drive.

Just another "customer" now.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=4884

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Funeral Scandal Is a Real Scene Stealer
The Plot Thickens
By Robert Bryce -- The Austin Chronicle -- May 5, 2000

Over the past year and a half, the Texas Funeral Service Commission has seen more bizarre plot changes than "Melrose Place." Fans shouldn't look for the tiny agency to leave prime time any time soon. Upcoming episodes this summer include exciting courtroom scenes starring several Texas political titans. The action-packed courthouse coverage will feature lots of shots of Attorney General John Cornyn actively defending his client, Governor George W. Bush, now a defendant in a lawsuit brought by Eliza May, the former executive director of the Commission. There’s also a high-stakes hearing at the State Office of Administrative Hearings pitting funeral giant Service Corporation International against state lawyers over the agency’s pending $445,000 fine against the company.

... {T}wo boxes of documents containing the Commission’s case against S.C.I. mysteriously vanished – and then suddenly reappeared in the agency’s file room. Finally, there will be ongoing installments on the travails of the agency’s recently hired but already besieged executive director, O.C. "Chet" Robbins. Despite the exciting season of programming, however, it also appears that the Legislature (which nearly pulled the plug on the funeral soap opera during its last session) may decide to end the series early next year by permanently shifting the agency’s duties to the Texas Department of Health.

The Funeral Commission – whose origins date back to the turn of the century, when the state decided it needed an agency to regulate morticians – has been relatively quiet for most of its history. But the Nineties were anything but calm. The agency has had six executive directors in the past six years. The one who preceded Eliza May landed in jail on charges of aggravated perjury and witness tampering.

Most Texas funeral directors were hoping that the Commission would quiet down with the hiring of Robbins, a former military man who obtained his funeral director’s license shortly before he was hired last October. But May’s pending lawsuit against Bush will keep the focus on the funeral industry and on the Commission’s efforts to police it. The lawsuit...alleges that the Governor "knowingly permitted his staff to intervene improperly" in the investigation of S.C.I. by May and her employees. The suit also claims Bush’s actions are an abuse of power and were designed to "subvert the lawful conduct of public officials in the performance of their official duties."

At the heart of May’s lawsuit is the appearance of influence buying. The suit claims Bush and a handful of state legislators sprang to S.C.I.’s defense because the funeral company gave tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to the politicians. The suit delineates the many connections between Bush and S.C.I.’s chief executive officer, Robert Waltrip, who has known the Bush family for three decades. His company’s political action committee gave Bush $35,000 for his 1998 campaign, and Waltrip gave Bush $10,000 for his 1994 race. Waltrip also serves as a trustee for former president George Bush’s presidential library in College Station, and S.C.I. donated more than $100,000 toward the construction of the library. Given those connections, the lawsuit claims that any suggestion that Bush would not have intervened on Waltrip’s behalf is "highly unlikely on its face."

May’s suit against Bush focuses on two meetings that took place in the office of Joe Allbaugh, Bush’s former chief of staff and current campaign manager. May alleges that Allbaugh purposely tried to intimidate her and to halt her investigation into S.C.I. It also alleges that Bush’s general counsel, Margaret Wilson, called May and told her that she was "under a lot of pressure" to end May’s investigation of S.C.I. and that if May didn't halt the investigation, it "would be taken away" from the Funeral Commission and handled by Bush’s office.
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{May} ... faces a potentially difficult adversary in {Attorney General John} Cornyn, who finds himself in the unusual position of defending Bush against May’s lawsuit while representing the Funeral Commission in its hearing against S.C.I.
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Over the past few months, {the agency’s recently hired but already besieged executive director, O.C. "Chet"} Robbins and the Commission chairman, Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, have repeatedly said their efforts to reopen the investigation into S.C.I. were stymied because they could not find all of the documents compiled by May and her investigators. But during an interview in late April, Robbins and Kubicek said two file boxes full of S.C.I.-related materials had suddenly materialized in the Commission’s file room, in their rented office space in downtown Austin. "Two boxes just appeared," says Kubicek. "Either I'm the most inept investigator ever to put on a pair of cowboy boots, or information just arrived."
...
{G}iven all the plot twists of late, and the possibility that the future president of the United States will end up on the witness stand to talk about the funeral business, don't be surprised if one of the smallest agencies in the state pops up in a ratings sweep.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2000-05-05/pols_feature5.html

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Lawyer wins another round in eminent domain case against the city
City might argue the case in a lower court
By Sarah Coppola -- American Statesman -- January 28, 2006

Little Guys who take on the government rarely win, unless the Little Guy is a guy like Harry Whittington.

Whittington, an Austin lawyer, is very rich, very stubborn and very patient — qualities that come in handy if, like him, you're waging a long legal battle against the city.

Six years ago, Austin condemned a downtown block Whittington's family owned to build a $10.5 million parking garage. Whittington's been fighting the city ever since. He racked up two legal victories last year, and on Friday racked up a third: The Texas Supreme Court denied the city's request to hear an appeal, which basically re-affirms a prior ruling in Whittington's favor.

The city law department, which has spent $387,000 on the case, doesn't plan to throw in the towel just yet. It can and will choose from two options, Austin's chief of litigation, Anne Morgan, said: Ask the state Supreme Court again to hear the case or argue the case in a county court trial, which Austin never had a chance to do.

Bring it on, says Whittington, who seems unfazed at having spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars" on his legal fees. He says his winning streak should give comfort to property owners unnerved by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of city condemnations.

"This," Whittington, 78, said of his lawsuit, "shows how the judicial system should work if you stay with it."

Whittington's family, which owned the block on Red River between Fourth and Fifth streets since 1980, wanted to develop the lot into apartments or shops. But the city had other ideas: building a 700-space garage for visitors to the nearby convention center and Sixth Street, and a $19.3 million chiller to cool nearby buildings.
...
Whittington is always coy when asked how long he plans to fight, or exactly what he'll do with the land or garage if he wins them. At this point, he seems more invested in the battle itself.

"We're right on the law," he said. "And we're not in any hurry."

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/28harry.html

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Going ‘up the ladder’ isn't cheap
By Molly Ivins -- August 16, 1999
(Note: This Molly Ivins column is VERY hard to find on the web now. The original link at http://www.reporternews.com/1999/opinion/ivins0816.html is now dead, and waybackmachine.org doesn't list it -- so I'm reproducing Molly's column in full here for archival purposes.)

AUSTIN — There’s a story that has been in the Texas press but is only now starting to get national attention because, of course, it involves Gov. Shrub.

Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek reporter of Monicagate fame, had an article on it in the magazine’s issue last week. There is a detailed report by Texan Robert Bryce in the online magazine Salon, as well as more information from the civil lawsuit at the root of it.

Bryce calls this “an apparent influence-buying scandal.”

I don't mean to be cynical, but it’s also a perfect example of How Things Work in a political system so corrupted by special-interest money that it’s hard to tell the difference between rank corruption and business as usual.

Eliza May, former chief regulator of the funeral industry in Texas, was fired from her job in February and is now suing the state of Texas, the largest funeral chain in the world and its chief, Robert Waltrip of Houston.

Waltrip was apparently most upset when May started an investigation last year after complaints about improper embalming procedures at two funeral establishments owned by his company, Service Corporation Inc.

May headed a tiny state agency that has since been stripped of much of what little power it had. SCI had earnings of $2.8 billion last year.

The upshot of the investigation was a $450,000 fine levied on SCI by the state funeral commission, which SCI refused to pay. After a meeting between Texas Attorney General John Cornyn and SCI’s lawyers, the AG’s office issued a decision that apparently allows the company to walk the fine.

According to Charles McNeil, chairman of the funeral commission, Waltrip called him during the investigation and told him to “back off” or “I'm taking this to the governor.”

Waltrip is close to both George Bush the Elder and Dubya. He’s on the board of Big George’s library and donated $100,000 to help build it, and Big Bush has used his corporate plane. Waltrip gave W. Bush $10,000 for his first gubernatorial race in ‘94, and SCI’s PAC gave him $35,000 in ‘98.

So in the middle of the investigation, Waltrip and Johnnie B. Rogers, a noted Austin lobbyist who is now an SCI lawyer, go by Bush’s office to drop off a letter demanding a halt of the investigation.

The regulators had subpoenaed some SCI records and done surprise inspections at some SCI funeral parlors. Waltrip denounced this as “stormtrooper tactics.” He must have figured the funeral regulators should follow the nice example set by Bush’s appointees at the state environmental agency, where they announce their surprise inspections in advance.

Isikoff reports that while Waltrip and Johnnie B. were meeting with Joe Allbaugh, Bush’s chief of staff, the governor popped in and said to Waltrip, “Hey Bobby, are those people still messing with you?” And to Rogers, “Hey Johnnie B., you taking care of him?”

Bush has been subpoenaed in May’s civil suit. In an effort to avoid having to testify, he has sworn to an affidavit saying he had no discussions about the investigation.

Somebody’s lyin’.

Waltrip’s lawyers filed papers June 11 saying Waltrip had talked to Bush in Bush’s office about SCI’s problems with the state regulators. Five days later, they filed a “supplemental” response, saying the discussion was “not substantive.”

May says she then got calls from three top Bush aides asking her to wrap up the SCI investigation, and much other pressure came down on the agency. At one point, Allbaugh met with her — with Waltrip present — to demand she list all the documents needed to finish the investigation.

May is a Democrat who was even a party treasurer at one point, so the Bushies are claiming her suit is political. But she sure wasn't the only one who got leaned on at that agency. One of the funnier items in the interrogatories in the suit is the allegation that May was “hostile and discourteous” when Waltrip phoned her last April. Those who know Waltrip were particularly amused.

An SCI spokesman said Waltrip was just “exercising his constitutional right” to take his protests “up the ladder.” Nothing I like better than someone who exercises his constitutional rights. Let’s make this man an honorary member of the ACLU. It’s just that under our charming system of legalized bribery, a $35,000 contribution seems to buy some citizens more constitutional rights than others. That well-known right to “go up the ladder” doesn't come cheap.

Creators Syndicate Inc.

http://smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=3291&forum=10

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Funeral Scandal Timeline
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/08/20/timeline/index.html

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[Clara T]

1. Interesting

Macabre group Reich-Wingers