News Release

Austin, Texas: A new study analyzing the 212 Pioneer fundraisers that have delivered at least 24% of Bush’s $90 million war chest concludes that their ranks are dominated by corporate executives and special interest lobbyists.  The Pioneers group includes a host of polluters, corporate welfare recipients and trade group leaders who seek special favors for their particular industries. The report by Texans for Public Justice is the first in-depth look at each of the Pioneers. The report classifies and analyzes the Pioneers made public by Bush as of July 15, by their business and ideological interests, tracks the total money each spends on politics, and provides individual profiles of each of the 212.  (Earlier this week the Bush campaign released a list of 14 additional Pioneers, bringing the total to 226.)

“Thanks to this small group of business tycoons & lobbyists, Bush has raised more money than any other political candidate in history, twice as much as any presidential candidate before him,” said Texans for Public Justice Director Craig L. McDonald.  “If you can judge a candidate by his big donors, a Bush presidency will bring more corporate welfare, more pollution, less consumer regulation and more business lobbyists to the White House.”

Among the findings of The Bush Pioneer report:
 

• 133 Pioneers are business executives, George Bush appointed 16 Pioneers to state government posts, 14 have spent the night at the Governor’s mansion in Austin, 13 represent polluter interests, 35 have benefited from corporate-welfare, 26 have been involved in one or more campaign finance-related scandals, and 20 Pioneers have kept the revolving door between government and industry spinning.
  
  
• The 212 identified Pioneers have raised a minimum of $21.2 million in hard money for Bush’s presidential effort.  These 212 individuals also contributed $2.3 million to Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns, $7.1 million in hard money to federal candidates and PACs and $4.1 million in soft money contributions to federal political party committees since the ’96 election cycle.
  
  
• The top 5 individual money movers among the Pioneers (total federal money since the ’96 election cycle plus money to Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns) are: A.G. Spanos , $877,450; Sam Fox, $831,733; Kenneth Lay, $574,550; Tom Loeffler, $495,424; and, Louis A. Beecherl, Jr., $446,350.
  
  
• Among the 212 Pioneers, the top overall contributors to Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns are:  Charles J. Wyly, Jr., $210,273; Dennis R. Berman, $175,000; Louis A. Beecherl, Jr., $154,000; Tom Loeffler, $141,000; and, Richard Heath, $124,449.
  
  
• Eighty-four companies controlled by or employing these 212 individuals contributed an additional $21 million in soft money contributions to political party committees since the ’96 election cycle, $15.5 million to the Republicans, $5.5 million to the Democrats.
  
  
• Like their companies, 73 of the individual Pioneers also support candidates of both parties.  These 73 Pioneers gave Democrats a total of $390,000 in hard and soft money since the ’96 election cycle.  The biggest Pioneer givers to Democrats are: Robert Day, Jr., $45,420; Kenneth Lay, $39,000; Randall D. Hubbard, $20,000; Larry Ruvo, $15,000; and Joseph C. Canizaro, $14,750.
  
  
• Lawyers and lobbyists lead the Pioneer pack when the 212 are identified by their primary economic interest or profession.  Forty-four of the Pioneers are classified as Lawyers & Lobbyists, 38 represent the Financial sector, 28 are from the Energy & Natural Resources sector (dominated by oil and gas), 24 are from the Real Estate sector, and 23 represent Miscellaneous Businesses.
  
  
• Sixty-six of the Pioneers hail from Texas.  The other Bush state, Florida, claims the next largest batch with 21.  California has produced 14 and Michigan 12.  No other state is in the double-digits.

The Bush Pioneers in all likelihood may have delivered much more than $100,000 each. But Bush’s campaign—which painstakingly tracks the amount of money raised by each Pioneer and even by each industry—refuses to make this information public. Similarly, the only Pioneers that the campaign has outed are those whom the campaign says already have delivered the requisite minimum of $100,000 apiece. Back in July 1999, Pioneer coordinator Jim Francis said that almost 400 individuals had taken the Pioneer pledge. Bush, who views disclosure as the cure to all that ails the campaign finance system, will not say how many individuals are being tracked and how much each has bundled for the campaign.

 The Bush Pioneer report is available at Texans for Public Justice’s website: http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/.
 

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