Toomey, M

<div class="nytg-donor-name">Mike Toomey</div>

Founder of the super PAC; lobbyist, former legislator and one-time chief of staff to Mr. Perry of Texas. make us great again

<h2 style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Superpacs</h2>

<p style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">The 2012 money dump is well underway, and it is massive. The tip of this destructive iceberg is a legalistic gimmick known as the SuperPAC. Authorized by Citizens United, these are super-sized, super-energized, political action committees. Unlike the regulated PACs of yesteryear, SuperPACs can take tens of millions of dollars right out of corporate coffers (as well as from unions and individuals, but corporations are the monster players) and put the whole load directly into ads and other efforts to elect or defeat any candidate(s) they choose.

How big of a load? Just one of these money monsters, Karl Rove's "American Crossroads" raised a whopping $28 million from corporate interests to elect Republicans in last year's elections. But that's a mere trickle compared to the tsunami now headed our way --Rove's Crossroads PAC is presently amassing a democracy-shattering $240 million for 2012.

Every major presidential candidate has at least one of these things sacking up and spending money specifically on their behalf. Rick Perry, for example, has six of them at work. Technically, SuperPACs are "independent" entities that must not coordinate their spending with the candidates they're supporting. This legal prohibition against coordination is absolute. And it's absolutely a farce and a fraud.

Take Perry's top SuperPAC, modestly named "Make Us Great Again," which intends to put $55 million behind the Texas yeehawer's effort to win the GOP presidential nomination. It was created and is headed by Mike Toomey, who was a top corporate lobbyist in Texas before sliding over in 2002 to be Perry's gubernatorial chief of staff. In 2004, Toomey slid back into lobbying, using his tight ties to Rick to become Austin's preeminent corporate influence peddler and a prodigious fundraiser for the guv. Cozy.

This year Toomey helped his buddy set up his presidential campaign, serving as both advisor and fundraiser. So now, he runs the Make Us Great Again outfit, piously insisting that it is entirely separate from Perry's campaign. Hello--the PAC and the campaign don't have to "coordinate," because both are embodied in Toomey!  hightower?

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<h1><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/01/309831/rick-perry-pay-to-play-private-prisons/">After Taking Nearly $100K From Private Prison Industry, Rick Perry Pushed Prison Health Privatization</a></h1>

By <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/author/ian-m/">Ian Millhiser</a> on Sep 1, 2011 at 1:00 pm

Last year, when Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) ran for re-election, the private prisons industry gave Perry tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations. Perhaps that explains why he suddenly developed a <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/rick-perry-prison-privatization">passionate desire to privatize Texas’ state prison health system</a> after his campaign was over:

[Corrections Corporation of America lobbyist Michael] Toomey, who had not contributed directly to any of the Governor’s previous gubernatorial campaigns, opened up his wallet for two separate $10,000 donations to Perry two months before Election Day in 2010. Thomas Beasley, the founder of CCA, has given $17,000 to Perry’s campaigns over the last decade. Another private prison firm, the GEO Group, poured $15,000 into Perry’s 2010 reelection effort in 2010 through its eponymous political action committee. Luis Gonzalez, a GEO Group lobbyist, meanwhile, gave $50,000 to Perry’s reelection bid.

Perry first floated the health care privatization proposal in his 2011 budget, which noted: “The Governor’s budget recommends canceling necessary contracts early to explore private sector delivery options, or instructing the state-supported institution to provide correctional care according to the constitutional minimum level.” Mike Ward of the Austin American-Statesman reported that Perry adviser Mike Morrissey held a closed-door meeting in March to discuss the privatization proposal with potential vendors—but not, pointedly, the state university-operated facilities that currently run things.

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Perry’s privatization plan eventually died in Texas’ overwhelmingly Republican state legislature because, in the words of Republican State Rep. Jerry Madden “[t]here was no evidence that it could be done cheaper.”

Despite this fact, Perry is just one of several right-wing state governors with cozy ties to the prisons-for-profit industry. Two of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R) most senior aides are current or former lobbyists for private prisons, and this industry stands to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/07/26/109493/prison-brewer/">earn a windfall off the anti-immigrant SB 1070 law that Brewer recently signed</a>. Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) turned over $600 million in corrections funding to the private prison industry after one private prisons company doled out <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/13/165943/florida-gop-blast-scott-prison/">hundreds of thousands of dollars to Scott and the Florida GOP</a>. And Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) plans to <a href="http://www.toledoblade.com/frontpage/2011/09/01/Judge-denies-request-to-halt-sale-of-5-prisons.html">sell five of its prisons to a private company</a>. Meanwhile, the private prisons industry has spent millions to lobby state lawmakers to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/23/251363/cca-geogroup-prison-industry/">make criminal laws harsher in order to drive up their profits</a>.

Yet while private prisons are having no trouble getting the attention of GOP lawmakers, they aren’t actually very good at running correctional facilities. A study of Arizona’s prison system found that private prisons <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/05/19/201038/the-failure-of-prison-privatization/">cost more than their government-run counterparts</a>, despite the fact that they typically steer clear of the costliest inmates.

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<a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/rick-perry-prison-privatization">http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/rick-perry-prison-privatization</a>

Rolling Stone

Perry has drawn scrutiny for his cozy relationships with top donors. According to the group <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Finfo.tpj.org%2Freports%2Fpdf%2Fperryprimer.fin.pdf&rct=j&q=Texans%20for%20Public%20Justice%2020%20percent%20fundraising%20perry&ei=rOZeTtLRMeHn0QGkiKnSAg&usg=AFQjCNFkqo7u2lfwsl2PUVjX5KWcHVxyiQ&sig2=UtoZW7rTBwAKSsOdncf4fw&cad=rja" target="blank">Texans for Public Justice</a> (PDF), nearly 20 percent of the governor’s fundraising totals since 2001 have come from people whom he has appointed, while programs like the $200 million Texas Enterprise Fund, designed to help the state lure new businesses with tax incentives, have been criticized as a "<a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/slush-fun" target="blank">slush fund</a>" for Perry donors. Toomey, the aide-turned-lobbyist who Texas Monthly ranked as one of the <a href="http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2011-02-01/feature" target="blank">25 most influential politicos</a> in the state, was the key player in Perry’s decision, overturned by the Legislature, to require all adolescent girls to receive an HPV vaccination. At the time, Toomey was <a href="http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/5546651.html" target="blank">a lobbyist for Merck</a>, the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the vaccine.

Toomey, known in Austin as "<a href="http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2003-05-01/feature3" target="_blank">Mike the Knife</a>,"

<a href="http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2003-05-01/feature3">http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2003-05-01/feature3</a>

served as Perry’s chief of staff for almost two years, from November 2002 through September 2004. The two have remained close—in August, Toomey formed a Super PAC, Make Us Great Again, specifically to support Perry’s presidential campaign. He added CCA to his client roster in 2007.

<a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/rick-perry-prison-privatization">http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/rick-perry-prison-privatization</a>

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texas mo

He's rough! He's tough! He won't take any guff! He's Rick Perry's chief of staff! He cuts Democrats—and Republicans—in half! Mike Toomey is The Enforcer.

by <a href="http://www.texasmonthly.com/authors/patriciakildayhart.php">Patricia Kilday Hart</a>

FOR THE PAST TWENTY YEARS, Mike Toomey has loomed large in state government, as imposing and immovable—and some would say as cold—as the pink-granite Capitol itself. First as a Republican legislator, then as the Capitol's premier business lobbyist, and now as chief of staff to his longtime friend Governor Rick Perry, the intense 53-year-old Houston lawyer has promoted a steadfast conservative agenda with little tolerance for compromise with—or mercy for—his adversaries. These include Democrats, plaintiffs lawyers, opposing lobbyists, and anybody else who stands in his way. His nickname, Mike the Knife, originally referred to his budget-cutting proposals as a legislator but now conveniently describes his propensity to carve up his enemies. With his encyclopedic knowledge of state government and his reputation as a ruthless political operative, he is positioned to help Perry challenge the old saw that the governorship of Texas is a constitutionally weak office. He is unquestionably the ...

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<h1 property="dc.title">Perry and ex-aide Mike Toomey have deep, mutually beneficial ties</h1>

<h3 property="dc.creator">By <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/2011/07/15/gIQAMhWJGI_page.html" rel="author">Karen Tumulty</a>, Published: September 16</h3>

Any insider at the Texas Capitol could have identified which aide-turned-lobbyist <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/michele-bachmann/2011/06/10/AG18UWPH_page.html">Rep. Michele Bachmann</a> was talking about when she attacked Texas Gov. Rick Perry over a 2007 executive order mandating that teenage girls receive a vaccination against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus.

“There was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate,” Bachmann (Minn.) said during Monday night’s GOP presidential debate in Tampa. “. . . The governor’s former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company. The drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor, and this is just flat-out wrong.”

Perry retorted that he was offended by any suggestion that he could be swayed by a $5,000 campaign contribution — an inaccurate figure, it turned out, that was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perry-has-deep-financial-ties-to-maker-of-hpv-vaccine/2011/09/13/gIQAVKKqPK_story.html">only a fifth of the actual amount</a> he had received from the company.

Even so, Bachmann understated the role that lobbyist Mike Toomey has played in Perry’s fortunes.

In the Republican frontrunner’s charmed political career, few relationships have been more mutually beneficial than one that began back in the mid-1980s, when both he and Toomey were members of the Texas House and roomed together during legislative sessions.

Since then, Toomey has made himself useful to Perry in a number of capacities — and has become one of Austin’s most sought-after and highly compensated lobbyists as a result.

In the first seven months of this year, Toomey earned somewhere between $1.34 million and $2.38 million doing work for 27 clients, according to data compiled by the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice from reports to the state ethics commission. (Texas disclosure laws require lobbyists to report their earnings in broad ranges.)

The business community in Texas is so powerful that Democrats sometimes refer to the lobbyist section in the capitol’s House gallery as “the owner’s box.”

As for Toomey, “I guess you would call him a fixer, and a go-between for the governor with the business lobby,” said Call Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “You find Toomey all over — sometimes on the inside; sometimes on the outside.”

Jillson added: “He’s out there doing everything he can think of on Perry’s behalf, and if he doesn’t have the money to do it, he knows where to get it.”

In 1993, while Perry was serving as Texas agriculture commissioner, Toomey served as his attorney in a lucrative land deal. While Perry was out of town on vacation, Toomey closed the sale of a 9.3-acre lot to computer mogul Michael Dell for $465,000, which was more than triple what Perry had paid for it only two years before.

During his two years as Perry’s chief of staff, from 2002 to 2004,Toomey was dubbed “The Enforcer” by Texas Monthly for his tough way of getting things done for Perry. “I think I am used as the bad cop regularly because I don’t mind doing it,” he told the magazine.

Last year, as Perry was running for reelection against a potentially strong Democratic opponent, a 22-year-old University of Texas student testified in court that Toomey had paid him $12,000 to get signatures in a petition drive to get the Green Party on the ballot. The move, if it had succeeded, could have siphoned off Democratic votes; a lawsuit by Democrats remains pending in federal court.

And days before Perry officially announced his presidential candidacy, Toomey announced the formation of a “Super PAC” on the governor’s behalf — one that has set a goal of raising and spending $55 million during the primary season.

A number of these largely unregulated organizations have sprung up during this campaign season. The groups are legally banned from coordinating their operations with those of presidential campaigns, but campaign finance reform advocates are skeptical that this is how things will operate in practice.

Toomey’s involvement in Perry’s Super PAC “is about as stark as you can get,” said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21. Not only is the lobbyist close to the governor himself, but he also owns an island in New Hampshire with Perry’s chief strategist Dave Carney.

According to <a href="http://parkerisland.com/index.html">a real estate listing </a>for the 2.7-acre island — which, as it happens, is not far from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s house on Lake Winnipesaukee — it rents for $18,000 a week during peak season. The property boasts dock space for up to 14 boats, two beaches, a main house that sleeps 12, a guest house that can fit eight, and a boat house that bunks another dozen people.

Toomey did not respond to a request for an interview.

Perry’s aides dismiss the suggestion that Toomey has had any undue influence on Perry. “The governor makes his own decisions,” spokesman Mark Miner said. “You’ll find many people who have worked for him in the past who continue to support him.”

As for the vaccine order, which the Texas legislature reversed, Miner insisted that Toomey played “no role. What drove the governor’s decision was saving lives.”

But skeptics say the move was almost inexplicable, except for Toomey’s influence, given that Perry has not been particularly aggressive on women’s health issues in the past.

Back in the days when Perry first got to know his fellow legislator, Toomey was a relatively rare breed in Texas: a Republican. Perry himself was a Democrat at the time, though within a few years, he and many other Texas politicians were switching parties.

In his first campaign for the House in 1982, Toomey had passed out little bottles of hand lotion to women’s groups bearing a label that said, “Don’t get chapped over higher taxes. Vote Mike Toomey.”

He quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and tough legislator, earning the nickname “Mike the knife” for his budget-cutting zeal. Later, he would serve as Republican Gov. Bill Clements’s chief of staff, where he was sometimes referred to as “Governor Toomey.”

Almost as notable were Toomey’s workaholic ways. He wore a beeper on his tuxedo at his wedding in the mid-1990s.

Perry has at times bucked the prevailing political wind in favor of the interests of Toomey’s clients. In 2001, for instance, the governor infuriated Texas’ powerful doctors lobby by vetoing its top legislative priority, a bill that would have required insurance companies to pay them more quickly.

The move stunned many in Austin, and so alienated the Texas Medical Association that it threw its support to Perry’s Democratic opponent in the next election. But Perry and Toomey insisted his decision had nothing to do with the fact that the lobbyist was representing health insurer Cigna.

If that’s the case, then there’s another force at work on Toomey’s behalf, said Andrew Wheat of Texans for Public Justice. “His clients just seem to have extremely good luck.”