Bushwhacked_ Life in George W. Bush's America Large Print - Molly Ivins [83]
It was more than money. The blessing of Ken Lay and Joe B. Allen—the political patrón at Enron’s hometown law firm—put Texas candidates on the gold standard. Lay could also destroy political careers—as a prince of a congressman by the name of Craig Washington found out after casting one anti-Lay vote. Washington had represented his district in both the Texas House and Senate before he was elected to Congress. He was strikingly handsome and charismatic and an eloquent and impassioned speaker. He voted his constituents’ interest. Washington was defeated in the Democratic primary by a candidate recruited by Lay: city council member Sheila Jackson Lee.
A corporate fat cat from River Oaks took out an incumbent African-American candidate beloved by voters in a minority district carved out of Houston’s black community for the late Barbara Jordan. That’s real identity politics.
“Silly,” as Ann Richards described it, is a kind description of what Bush said about his Kenny Boy. The president lied. Anyone with free time and a cheap calculator can walk into the offices of the Texas Ethics Commission and get the numbers from Bush’s campaign filings. When he ran for governor in 1994, Enron gave Bush $146,500; he got $47,500 in direct contributions from Ken and Linda Lay. Lay gave Ann Richards $12,500. By 1998, when Bush rolled over an underfunded Democrat named Garry Mauro, Lay, the company PAC, and Enron execs had more than a half million dollars in Bush’s two campaigns.
The $1,000 cap on federal contributions made it harder for Ken and Linda to show their love for George W. when he ran for president, but no campaign-finance law ever stood between a creative contributor and his candidate. Lay became a Bush Pioneer, raising $100,000 in $1K contributions. Both major parties used clever mechanisms to get around the toothless campaign-finance laws then on the books. Bush’s “Pioneers” corps was one of those mechanisms, and Ken Lay was a pioneering Pioneer.
Lay individually contributed more than $275,000 to the Republican National Committee, and Enron provided $250,000 for the Bush coronation at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Ken and Linda also contributed $10,000 to the Florida recount fund. During the recount, while Al Gore was stuck on the ground wondering who to sue, Enron’s corporate air force flew Bush-campaign operatives anywhere they needed to go. Bush family lawyer James Baker III shuttled back and forth on corporate jets owned by Reliant Energy, the Houston utility where he serves on the board. Halliburton’s aircraft were also pressed into service. The grand total of Enron contributions to Bush 2000 was $700,000.
Ken Lay was part of the political patrimony Poppy Bush handed down to his son. Years before Lay dined at the White House with George W. and Laura, he was an overnight White House guest of George and Barbara Bush. He earned his stay, raising money for the elder Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign by cohosting a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Houston and by encouraging Enron employees to contribute to the Bush presidential campaign. None of this had anything to do with influence and access, not a thing. By the time Lay was giving his time and money to the Bush Pioneers in 1999, he was tired of the cynicism of those who criticized this splendid system. At a 1999 company meeting in Houston, Lay stood, smiling, before thousands of Enron employees and said: “They don’t think an individual can make a contribution because they believe in the candidate. They’re always doing this to get some benefit.”
By that time Lay had already gotten “some benefit” from the Bushes. Rodolfo Terragno was the Argentine minister of public works under President Raúl Alfonsín. In 1988, Terragno said, he got a cold call from an Enron salesman. “He told me he had recently returned from a campaign tour with his father” and that awarding a huge gas-pipeline contract to Enron “would be very favorable to the United States.” Terragno said the caller was George W. Bush. Bush denied making the call