Perry, R Bob $

guk 2007

In 2004, Perry gave more than $4m to the Swift Boat campaign.

RIP:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The deaths this year of three major Texas Republican donors, including a billionaire who died over the weekend, could signal a generational change for party kingmakers in the nation's largest GOP stronghold.

Harold Simmons, whose business interests ranged from energy to nuclear waste dumps, helped transform Texas from a Democrat-controlled state in the 1970s to a Republican stronghold by the turn of the century. Simmons' death Saturday came after Republicans lost home builder Bob Perry in April and businessman Leo Linbeck Jr. in June. For decades, all three helped bankroll political campaigns both in Texas and nationwide.

All three men were considered conservative renegades when they got involved in politics. However, as the state grew more conservative, they became part of the GOP mainstream.

The loss comes as Texas Republicans already were facing a turning point. Gov. Rick Perry, one of the donors' biggest recipients, isn't seeking re-election next year, and a new breed of GOP candidates such as tea party-backed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has emerged in the state.

"It leaves a huge question mark for Republican candidates and political organizations that have relied on major contributions from those two or three individuals for the last decade," said Matt Mackowiak, a prominent Republican political consultant. "Their generosity made a huge difference in a lot of races over a long period of time, but it was their potential to always contribute more that probably prevented a lot of races from ever taking place at all by scaring off potential competitors.

The three men contributed to Republican candidates and organizations across the country, but their influence was greatest in Texas, which has no limit on personal campaign contributions.

Simmons, who had an estimated net worth of $10 billion, gave at least $12.6 million to candidates in Texas races since 2000, according to the Texas Ethics Commission. The Center for Public Integrity named him the second-largest donor to national political action committees for 2011-2012, giving away $31 million to conservative groups.

Houston tycoonBob Perry, no relation to the Texas governor, made his fortune building tract homes across the state and made at least $75 million in political contributions in his lifetime, not counting confidential gifts to super PACs, which can campaign independently for candidates. He gave $4.4 million to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, which sought to discredit Democrat John Kerry's war record when he challenged President George W. Bush in 2004. Simmons also gave the group $3 million.

Linbeck, whose family also made its fortune in construction, helped create two of the state's most influential conservative organizations, Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Americans for Fair Taxation. TLR spent millions on candidates who supported limits on lawsuits against businesses and AFT campaigns to replace the national income tax with a national sales tax.

The full extent of their donations may never be known, since many were made privately.

James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said there is a generational change taking place in the Republican Party that coincides with the growing fight between grass-roots tea party conservatives like Cruz, and the more pragmatic business wing of the party, represented by Texas House Speaker Joe Straus.

"We associate these guys with an era of Republican politics in this state that is in transition and possibly becoming something different," he said. "These were the guys who were the bedrock donors for the business wing of the Republican Party, and as politics has gotten more polarized, the party has a more ideological bent to it. These were guys in big business who were motivated by classical business interests."

An example of this pragmatism came in 2011, when Texas legislators debated a law that would have required local police to question the immigration status of the people they encounter. Bob Perry, whose industry relies on immigrants, opposed the measure, and Republican leaders made sure it expired without a vote.

So-called establishment candidates will suffer the most from losing these critical donors, said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones, an expert on Texas campaign finance. He said Perry and Simmons dwarfed all other Republican donors in Texas.

"The absence of someone like Perry or Simmons hamstrings (establishment candidates) in many respects, and their ability to use their financial advantage against tea party and movement conservatives," he said. "There is no one left now that has the gravitas to single-handedly decide whether a candidate runs or not, or is viable or not."

But Corbin Casteel, another Republican campaign consultant, said a new generation will step in to make up for the lost donations.

"While there may be a giving gap now, or in the short run, there is more out there," he said. "In West Texas (oil fields) there are a lot of new, wealthy conservatives who are just beginning to get involved in the political movement, we're looking at a whole new generation of major Republican donors coming onto the scene.

ca electoral college scam

More recently the Club for Growth received a contribution of $200,000 in December 2007 from Bob Perry, and the Republican Party of Texas secured a September 2007 donation of $10,000. However, the Texas GOP wasn’t the sole recipient of Perry’s funding because during the summer of 2007 the California law firm of Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk LLP, which had represented theEconomic Freedom Fund:{ also received funding from Perry to support the apportionment of the California presidential electors on a district-by-district basis such that the election would be rigged to favor a Republican in the presidential voting. :(style="color:#333333;"):}:[SourceWtch:{]}:

==

nick c

The group’s fund-raising shot upward, bolstered by bigger contributions from longtime donors — such as tobacco, pharmaceutical and telecommunications interests — and new money from the growing network of post-Citizens Unitedconservative political groups. By Election Day, the leadership committee would raise$30 million, its biggest two-year haul ever.

The bulk of that money went into a carefully laid assault on Democratic lawmakers in 19 states, planned in tandem with efforts by the Republican Governors Association. In some states, the groups handed cash directly to state parties or candidates. Elsewhere, they spent millions on hard-to-track radio and television advertisements.

The leadership committee’s nationwide base of donors lent candidates distance from the source of the money benefiting them, and allowed the committee to maneuver around varying rules that apply to campaign spending in different states. Instead of spending money where it was raised, the Republican State Leadership Committee could allocate checks to affiliates in other states. Other checks could be pooled into a central fund in Washington and then distributed in large chunks to state Republican Parties, to candidates or to campaigns by independent groups.

Alabama was an obvious target. Long after its voters had become overwhelmingly Republican, Alabama retained Democratic majorities in the Legislature. Mr. Hubbard, himself a state representative, and officials at the leadership committee believed just one well-organized push would send the Democrats into permanent minority status.

Yet state law prohibited corporations from giving more than $500. And other potential donors were unwilling to give to the party at all, in case the takeover effort failed. “There were a lot of people and companies who didn’t want to give to us directly because they feared the Democrats,” Mr. Hubbard said.

Many of those donors were willing, however, to give to a Republican group in Washington. After meeting with leadership committee officials, Mr. Hubbard, along with his finance chairman, State Senator Del Marsh, began raising money for the group. If they did well enough, Mr. Hubbard believed, the leadership committee would make a similar investment in Alabama.

“We had to become players for them,” said Mr. Hubbard. “Their job is to flip legislatures, and we wanted them to help us flip Alabama.”

During the 2010 cycle, the leadership committee took in close to a million dollars from Alabama donors. And over the same period, the group directed about $1.4 million into an Alabama-registered political action committee, all of it from out-of-state corporations. Because the state allowed unlimited transfers between political action committees and parties — a loophole long exploited by Democrats and Republicans alike — the leadership committee could shuffle all of that money to the state party and a pair of committees controlled by Mr. Hubbard and his team.

The arrangement also offered donors a way to help Mr. Hubbard without their checks showing up on the Alabama party’s public filings. One such supporter was the Poarch Band of CreekIndians, which operates several large casinos on tribal land in Alabama.

The tribe was wary of the rapid expansion of non-Indian gambling in the state, particularly the proliferation of small bingo parlors competing with their resort casinos, and stood to benefit if antigambling Republicans took control of the Legislature. But precisely because they opposed gambling, few Republican state lawmakers or candidates would accept the tribe’s contributions.

After meeting with Mr. Marsh and other Republicans, said Robert R. McGhee, director of government affairs for the tribe, the tribe chose a different approach: It donated $350,000 to the leadership committee. When the contributions were later disclosed, critics accused Mr. Hubbard of using the Washington group to launder the money by exchanging it with other contributions.

A spokesman for the leadership committee said that the Poarch Creek contributions had been allocated to the group’s administrative account, to pay for overhead and other expenses, and that the staff members involved in arranging the checks no longer worked at the organization. Mr. Hubbard said there had been no agreement to directly swap cash.

“The conversation was, ‘I’ve got some people in Alabama who are very interested in giving money to help elect Republicans to state legislatures, and I would hope that if we help raise money for you, you will help us win in Alabama,’ ” Mr. Hubbard said.

Launch media viewerGun-rights advocates at the Democratic-controlled State Capitol in Denver on Jan. 9. Matthew Staver for The New York Times

Swap or no swap, public records suggest that many of the contributions the leadership committee raised in Alabama made their way to races in other states.

About $260,000 from Alabama donors, for example, was assigned to a Pennsylvania account originally set up to collect checks from federal political action committees. (Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that allow such contributions to be spent directly on state races.) But none of the money raised was spent in Pennsylvania. Instead, the Alabama contributions were pooled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in political action committee checks and individual contributions from around the country. Beginning in August 2010, the leadership committee transferred $860,000 from the Pennsylvania account to the Republican Party in Iowa to assist its candidates.

The Republican Governors Association made similar transfers. In Michigan, for example, a political action committee set up by the governors association raised $8.4 million. Virtually all of it came from a roster of elite donors outside Michigan, such asBob Perry, the Texas homebuilder, and David Koch, the billionaire industrialist. Most of that money was transferred to the Michigan Republican Party.

While out-of-state donors were funneling millions of dollars into Michigan, Republicans were sending millions of dollars back out to the governors association in Washington. All told, Michigan donors contributed $8.5 million to the association. That is roughly as much as the group spent on independent advertisements to help elect the Republican candidate for governor, Rick Snyder, on top of the money transferred directly for the Michigan party.

Rich Robinson, the head of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, a watchdog group, said he believed the transactions were designed in part to allow Michigan businesses, which could not give directly to Mr. Snyder, to exchange their contributions for money from out-of-state individual donors, who could legally donate. “It appeared to be a currency swap to obfuscate the actual sources of money,” Mr. Robinson said. “I had never seen anything like this before, particularly at this scale.”

More than $5 million of the Michigan money raised by the governors association, for example, was a corporate money from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. Two million dollars of that went to association affiliates in Maine and Florida, where corporate contributions are legal.

A spokesman for the governors association, Jon Thompson, said that all of its contributions had been disclosed in campaign filings and that the association made sure its transfer stayed within each state’s restrictions on the size and source of contributions. “The R.G.A. raises funds to elect and support Republican governors,” Mr. Thompson said, “and we invest that money in full compliance of the law wherever we see any opportunity to make a difference in accomplishing our objective.”

Only when the dust from the 2010 elections settled did the full scale of the Republicans’ success become clear.

The governors association spent $99 million and ended with Republican control of 29 governorships, up from 23, the highest number for either party in a decade. Republicans controlled 25 legislatures around the country, up from 14, including in pivotal swing states such as North Carolina, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In Alabama, Republicans won supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature. Mr. Hubbard’s colleagues elected him speaker of the Assembly, while Mr. Marsh became Senate leader.

The Alabama Republican Party’s finances during that period have since come under scrutiny: Some of the party’s records have been subpoenaed by the Alabama attorney general, Luther Strange, a Republican, though the scope of his office’s inquiry is unclear, and Mr. Hubbard has denied any wrongdoing.

But the impact of Republican governance in Alabama has been undeniable. In the party’s first year in control, the Legislature passed — and the governor signed — more than 30 major pieces of legislation, including new tax breaks for businesses, ethics overhauls and restrictions on abortion and union organizing.

sunlight:

http://influenceexplorer.com/individual/bob-j-perry/9e56e8c8b44c4ab5b0c6c94e57f2b929?cycle=2010

http://influenceexplorer.com/industry/unknown/cdb3f500a3f74179bb4a5eb8b2932fa6?cycle=2010

oddly, biggest donor to unknown category (his wife sep)

THIS IS FUNDER< SEE ALSO GOV TEXAS

note legal

October 21, 2010

Big Gifts to G.O.P. Groups Push Donor to New Level

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MICHAEL LUO

WASHINGTON — When Bob Perry, a wealthy home builder from Texas, emerged six years ago as a prime financer of the Swift Boat Veterans attack ads against Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, the political strategist Karl Rove was there to vouch for Mr. Perry.

“I’ve known him for 25 years,” Mr. Rove said on Fox News. Back when Republicans were not so popular in Texas, Mr. Perry was one of the few wealthy Texans “willing to write checks to Republican candidates,” Mr. Rove added.

Now Mr. Rove and his party are benefiting from his old friend’s largess once again, as new federal disclosure reports this week showed that Mr. Perry has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group Mr. Rove helped start. Mr. Perry was the group’s biggest donor.

Mr. Perry, 77, has long been a major donor to Republican candidates, with significant contributions to George W. Bush’s campaigns for Texas governor and his presidential races, as well as to Republican groups and causes. But his donations to American Crossroads, which has become a major force this election season in pushing Republican candidates, along with $4 million to the Republican Governors Association this year, put Mr. Perry in another stratosphere as a conservative version of George Soros, the patron of liberal causes.

Mr. Perry, who lives in a 13,000-square-foot home in Houston, was not giving interviews on Thursday. “We’ll let the donations speak for themselves,” a spokesman said.

Even Republicans consider him something of a mystery. While many major donors use their contributions to gain access to powerful politicians, Mr. Perry is a perennial no-show at fund-raising galas.

“He never comes to anything,” said Fred Malek, a longtime Republican operative who helps lead fund-raising at the Republican Governors Association. “I’ve never met him or seen him at any of our events that feature our governors, so he certainly is not seeking access,” he said. “I would love to meet him to thank him for everything he’s done.”

Because donations to some politically active groups are anonymous, it is impossible to know exactly how much Mr. Perry has given over the years, but an associate who spoke on the condition of anonymity placed the figure at “well over $20 million.”

Perry Homes, the high-end custom home company he founded 43 years ago, was the third-biggest homebuilder in the Houston area in 2009, according to The Houston Chronicle. The company’s home closings dropped 33 percent last year as the housing market took deep hits, The Chronicle reported, but the downturn does not appear to have affected donations from his personal fortune, which has been estimated at over $600 million.

Mr. Perry and his wife, Doylene, have given nearly $400,000 to candidates and party committees in the 2010 election cycle, with nearly $300,000 going to the Republican campaign committees in the House and Senate, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

In addition his donation this year, Mr. Perry gave $2 million to the governors’ association last year. He contributed $50,000 in September to the First Amendment Alliance, an independent group that has spent at least $800,000 attacking Democratic candidates for Senate in Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky and Nevada, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Including his most recent contributions to American Crossroads, he has given more than $13 million to outside groups able to accept donations of unlimited size in this election cycle.

Mr. Perry is atop a group of megadonors who have contributed $1 million or more this year to Republican groups like American Crossroads and the Republican Governors Association. Others include Robert B. Rowling, a Texas billionaire; Wayne Hughes, the chairman and founder of Public Storage; Harold Simmons, another Swift Boat financier; Jerry Perenchio, a former chairman of Univision; Trevor Rees-Jones, a Dallas oil-and-gas billionaire; Paul Singer, a Manhattan hedge fund manager; and Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate.

Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign finance and has researched Mr. Perry’s donations, said in an interview that Mr. Perry’s financial clout had made him not only the single biggest donor in Texas in the last decade, but an increasing national presence as well.

“It’s not just Swift Boat, it’s not just Karl Rove,” Mr. Wheat said. “There are a range of federal and state races. He’s a partisan who believes in investing in Republican control at the state and federal level, and people around the country are starting to get to know Bob Perry.”

Mr. Perry’s financial involvement in the Swift Boat campaign against Mr. Kerry particularly rankled Democrats, who saw the effort as an unfair smear, and they have tried to use the issue repeatedly to taint Mr. Perry.

Mr. Perry, as he often does, ignored the attacks and continued making donations. In a rare interview in 2002, Mr. Perry said, “I have been fortunate to gain more financial strength in recent years, and I made a decision to be more involved in campaigns that I think are important.”

Mr. Rove and Mr. Perry worked together in the 1986 Texas governor’s race for William Clements, with Mr. Perry as campaign treasurer and Mr. Rove as a political consultant.

They shared a desire to secure tort reform to limit the liability of corporations in civil litigation. Mr. Rove used the issue in Texas in the late 1980s as a way of galvanizing conservatives, particularly in the business community, and Mr. Perry gave more than $2 million to promote the issue.

Mr. Perry’s company was drawn into a long controversy over the liability issue when a couple claimed a Perry Homes house was defective.

The buyers won an $800,000 arbitration award in 2008. But the state’s Supreme Court overturned the award, leading groups like Texans for Public Justice to charge that Mr. Perry’s many donations to the court’s Republican justices had tainted the ruling. The buyers took the case back to court for trial, and in March a jury ordered Perry Homes to pay $58 million in damages.

ca prop to redesitict also funded by Singer?

The majority of this money has come from three donors and two corporations. Texas homebuilder Bob Perry has provided $7 million to American Crossroads. In 2004, Perry was a major funder of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a 527 group that ran ads assailing the Vietnam record of presidential candidate John Kerry. Perry also contributed millions to the Economic Freedom Fund, another 527 group that operated during the 2006 election cycle.

---sw

Robert J. "Bob" Perry is a Houston, Texas, homebuilder who has "helped bankroll the widespread success of Republican candidates", has "long-standing ties to many close associates" of President George W. Bush, and has "contributed to Bush's last four campaigns. According to interviews and campaign documents, he has given a total of more than $5 million to scores of political candidates," the Houston Chroncle reported in August 2004.^[1]

In the 2006 election cycle, Perry, who was the "#1 individual donor to 527 committees, donated as much as the #2, #3 and #4 on the list. That is $9,750,000 in total."^[2]

Buying the California 2008 vote for the GOP

During summer 2007, the California law firm Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP, which has represented such Republican front groups as the Economic Freedom Fund, also bankrolled by Perry,^[3] "filed a ballot initiative that would apportion the state’s presidential electors on a district-by-district,^[4] rather than statewide, basis. The ballot initiative 'would rig elections in a way that would make it difficult for a Democrat to be elected president, no matter how the popular vote comes out'^[5]."^[6]

Swiftboating Hillary Clinton

Chris Kelly of The Huffington Post "writes^[7] that stophernow.com^[8] — funded by the likes of Republican heavy hitters T. Boone Pickens and Bob Perry — aims for satire and misses. Light on the laughs, he says, and heavy on the lame when firing at the junior senator from New York.

"'You look at this site and all you can think is: You’re Republicans. … Now you can’t even run a smear campaign? Do you expect to win the next election on Diebold (election computers) alone?'"^[9]

Bankrolling Mitt Romney

A member of Romney's Texas Leadership Team, in March 2007 Perry threw a fundraiser for 2008 Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.^[10]

"While Bob Perry will not be able to write Romney any more than a $2,300 check, his willingness to fund third-party groups^[11] could play a key role as the campaign heats up.

"Second, the Romney team is likely to paint Perry's decision as a slap in the face to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Back in 2005, Perry cut a $4,200 check to McCain's Senate reelection committee, which was subsequently transferred to McCain's presidential exploratory committee. Now, it's important to remember that McCain never claimed Perry as a formal backer for his presidential campaign, and the two would seem an unlikely pair given McCain's advocacy for legislation that would severely curtail the political activities of 527 groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."^[12]

"Third is the symbolism of Romney linking himself to Perry. No single person is more closely identified with the Swift Boat Veterans and their controversial campaign to discredit John Kerry than Perry. While most Democrats decried the actions of the group as the lowest form of negative politics, many on the Republican side credit it with fundamentally altering the public perception of Kerry -- a transformation some say led directly to President Bush's reelection in 2004."^[12]

Bankrolling Free Enterprise Fund in 2007

Perry was the primary financier for the Free Enterprise Fund, the 527 group that came under fire for producing the attack ad that implied that New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez has mob connections. In addition, FEF harassed Democratic candidates by placing their personal, home telephone numbers in FEF's TV ads.^[3]

Bankrolling Matt Blunt in 2007

One financial report states that, as of July 2007, Perry had only contributed a total of $471,000 in campaign cash, a far cry from "his record contributions of 2006 of $4.5 Million."^[13]

However, August 2007 research shows that Bob Perry and Doylene Perry of Perry Homes in Houston, Tex., contributed $300,000 between March and June 2007 to Missourians for Matt Blunt Inc., a political action committee (C051019) in support of Missouri's Republican Governor.^[14]

Bankrolling the GOP in 2006

In 2006, Perry surpassed George Soros as the largest political donor in the country, contributing over nine million dollars to GOP senate and house candidates nationwide, according to Bloomberg News.^[15]

"In the 2006 midterms Perry spent about $9 million on robo calls, mailers, and TV and radio ads attacking 20 Democratic House and Senate candidates. Highlights included Montana's gay-baiting TV ad 'Brokebank Democrats,' and his impish habit of putting the home phone telephone numbers of Democratic challengers in his ads. Perry even took the trouble to funnel his meddling millions through three separate, generically-named '527' groups"^[16] like the Economic Freedom Fund, Free Enterprise Fund, and Americans for Honesty in Issues.^[17]

Perry's "cash" made its way "into the Iowa, Colorado, Indiana and Tennessee campaigns, among others", and funded the "especially negative ad attacking Democrat Harold Ford's Armani suits and expensive cigars".^[17]

Bankrolling Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004

Perry, described as a "close friend" of both Karl Rove and John E. O'Neill and said to be the "single largest Texas donor" to the Republican Party, contributed 4.5 million dollars^[18] to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smear campaign against then presidential candidate John F. Kerry.^[19][20]

Bankrolling Progress for America Voter Fund in 2004

In the 2004 election cycle, Perry "also donated $3 million to Progress for America Voter Fund, a so-called '527' group that raised more than $38 million that cycle."^[21]

Bankrolling Tom DeLay

Perry was "the largest contributor" to Tom DeLay's political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), "giving $165,000 in the 2002 election cycle." In 2001, Perry "contributed $95,000" to DeLay's Republican Majority Issues PAC.^[22]

DeLay (R-Tex.) represented Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1984 to 2006, served as House Majority Leader from 2002 until his resignation in 2005 following his indictment on conspiracy charges, and stepped down from his seat in Congress on June 9, 2006.

Background

"Perry has been a political donor for years, working with White House political director Karl Rove during Rove's Texas years, contributing to Texas Governor Rick Perry's rise in politics and giving $20,000 to Bush's two campaigns for governor in the 1990s.

"But Perry, no relation to the governor, began increasing his donations in 2000. Today, campaign documents and his representatives confirm that he has given more money to campaigns and political organizations in the past four years than any other Texan. A few of his donations have gone to Democratic candidates, but most have gone to Republicans and conservative causes.

"He has given almost $1 million to the Texas Republican Party. He has donated at least $200,000 to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, one of the most successful tort reform" organizations in the nation.

"In the 2002 election cycle, he also provided about $700,000 for the GOP's effort to dominate Texas politics. That included $165,000 given to Texans for a Republican Majority, an offshoot of US House majority leader Tom DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority, formed to help conservatives get elected.

"The election that year of a slate of DeLay-backed Republicans -- all supported by Perry -- gave the GOP control of the state House for the first time in 130 years. That paved the way for passage of a host of conservative measures, such as abortion restrictions and limits on medical malpractice cases. The GOP also redrew congressional maps for Texas, a move designed to shore up Republican control of Congress.

"Perry is largely unknown outside campaign finance databases and a small group of political leaders, shunning social activities often embraced by major donors. Many of the politicians who have received Perry's money say they have never met him."^[1]

Resources

Also see

• Bush-Cheney '04 Inc.
• Freedom's Watch
• The Courts: Shifting the Judiciary to the Right ... for Big Business
• U.S. congressional elections in 2006
• U.S. presidential election, 2004
• U.S. presidential election, 2008

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Scott Gold, "Top Bush supporter funds attacks on Kerry's war record. Homebuilder is longtime force in Texas GOP," Houston Chronicle (Boston Globe), August 15, 2004.
2. ↑ "Romney scores Texas’ biggest political donor," 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign Finance Blog, May 28, 2007.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} "Free Enterprise Fund," Swiftboating USA Blog, January 23, 2007.
4. ↑ Dan Morain, "GOP eyes California's electoral pie. Strategists push a 2008 ballot initiative that would slice up the state's 55 votes for president, based on congressional districts," Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2007.
5. ↑ Editorial: "Stacking the Electoral Deck," New York Times, August 22, 2007.
6. ↑ "GOP Power Grab For California Votes Linked To Swift Boat Funder," Think Progress, September 4, 2007.
7. ↑ Chris Kelly, "How They'll Beat Hillary," The Huffington Post, August 8, 2007.
8. ↑ stophernow.com website.
9. ↑ "Politics: Hillary Rodham Punchline," KansasCity.com, August 8, 2007.
10. ↑ Chris Cillizza and Matthew Mosk, "'Swift Boat' Figure Joins Romney," Washington Post, March 17, 2007.
11. ↑ Pat Doyle, "Swift Boat contributor funded ads against Hatch," Star Tribune, December 20, 2006.
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1} Chris Cillizza, "Swift Boat Money Man Raising $ for Romney," The Fix Blog/Washington Post, March 16, 2007.
13. ↑ John Coby, "Raising Campaign Cash 2007 from Bob Perry," Bay Area Houston Blogspot, July 28, 2007.
14. ↑ "Texas Republicans Doing Missouri Republican Dirty Work," KC Blue Blog, August 30, 2007.
15. ↑ Michael Forsythe and Jonathan D. Salant, "Soros Bumped as Top Political Giver by Swift-Boat Group's Perry," Bloomberg News, November 3, 2006.
16. ↑ Justin Rood, "He Burned Thru $9 Mil, But Rich GOPer Couldn't Start a Fire," TPMmuckraker, November 9, 2006.
17. ↑ ^{17.0 17.1} Cody Lyon, "Who is Bob Perry and Why Should Voters Care?" CodyLyon's Blogolater Blogspot, March 13, 2007. A repost of the 2006 "What Bob Perry's Politicking Says About Campaign Finance Rules In America."
18. ↑ Michael R. Blood, "Calif. Ballot Proposal's GOP Ties," Associated Press (examiner.com (N.H.)), September 4, 2007.
19. ↑ Kate Zernike and Jim Rutenberg, "Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad," New York Times, August 20, 2004.
20. ↑ Bill Berkowitz, "The power of Bob Perry's 'Swift-Boating' money," Media Transparency, October 27, 2006.
21. ↑ Paul Kiel, "Swift Boat Redux: Wealthy GOP Donor Drops $5 Mil for New Group," TPMmuckraker, September 14, 2006.
22. ↑ "Bob Perry - The Man Behind Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," Texans for Public Justice, accessed September 5, 2007.

External links

• Bob J. Perry in the Wikipedia.
• Todd J. Gillman, "Public relations woman has central role in Kerry ad controversy,"Dallas Morning News, August 21, 2004.
• "‘Swift Boat’ backer is major political financier. Texan has deep pockets for conservative causes," Associated Press (MSNBC), August 27, 2004.
• Stephanie Taylor, "Deep Throat? Try Deep Pockets," The Democratic Party, April 13, 2007.
• WorkingMissouri, "Meet Blunt's Biggest Donor: 'Swift Boat' Bob Perry," Fired Up! Missouri, April 16, 2007.
• Democratic National Committee, Press Release: "Corrupt Donors Can Buy Romney a Straw Poll, But Not a New Record," PRNewswire-USNewswire (EarthTimes.org), August 13, 2007.
• Joann Livingston, "Reasons to impeach," Independent Texans (Waxahachie Daily Light), August 18, 2007.
• Nancy in Cali, "Hating Hillary," MyDD, August 30, 2007.
• Steve Benen, "The driving force behind the California scam," The Carpetbagger Report, September 4, 2007.
• Digby, "Swift Balloting 2008," Hullabaloo Blogspot, September 4, 2007.
• Bill Berkowitz, "Republicans trying to split California Electoral Vote," Media Transparency, September 12, 2007.

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_J._Perry"

Categories: Politics (U.S.) | Elections (U.S.) | Political dirty tricks

Big Gifts to G.O.P. Groups Push Donor to New Level

October 22, 2010 posted by Michael Leon · 2 Comments

Karl Rove Is Back

• Bob Perry, a wealthy home builder from Texas, has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the group Karl Rove helped start -

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MICHAEL LUO at the NYT

WASHINGTON — When Bob Perry, a wealthy home builder from Texas, emerged six years ago as a prime financer of the Swift Boat Veterans attack ads against Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, the political strategist Karl Rove was there to vouch for Mr. Perry.

“I’ve known him for 25 years,” Mr. Rove said on Fox News. Back when Republicans were not so popular in Texas, Mr. Perry was one of the few wealthy Texans “willing to write checks to Republican candidates,” Mr. Rove added.

Now Mr. Rove and his party are benefiting from his old friend’s largess once again, as new federal disclosure reports this week showed that Mr. Perry has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group Mr. Rove helped start. Mr. Perry was the group’s biggest donor.

Mr. Perry, 77, has long been a major donor to Republican candidates, with significant contributions to George W. Bush’s campaigns for Texas governor and his presidential races, as well as to Republican groups and causes. But his donations to American Crossroads, which has been become a major force this election season in pushing Republican candidates, along with $4 million to the Republican Governors Association this year, put Mr. Perry in another stratosphere as a conservative version of George Soros, the patron of liberal causes.

Mr. Perry, who lives in a 13,000-square-foot home in Houston, was not giving interviews on Thursday. “We’ll let the donations speak for themselves,” a spokesman said.

Even Republicans consider him something of a mystery. While many major donors use their contributions to gain access to powerful politicians, Mr. Perry is a perennial no-show at fund-raising galas.

“He never comes to anything,” said Fred Malek, a longtime Republican operative who helps lead fund-raising at the Republican Governors Association. “I’ve never met him or seen him at any of our events that feature our governors, so he certainly is not seeking access,” he said. “I would love to meet him to thank him for everything he’s done.”

Because donations to some politically active groups are anonymous, it is impossible to know exactly how much Mr. Perry has given over the years, but an associate who spoke on the condition of anonymity placed the figure at “well over $20 million.”

Perry Homes, the high-end custom home company he founded 43 years ago, was the third-biggest homebuilder in the Houston area in 2009, according to The Houston Chronicle. The company’s home closings dropped 33 percent last year as the housing market took deep hits, The Chronicle reported, but the downturn does not appear to have affected donations from his personal fortune, which has been estimated at over $600 million.

Mr. Perry and his wife, Doylene, have given nearly $400,000 to candidates and party committees in the 2010 election cycle, with nearly $300,000 going to the Republican campaign committees in the House and Senate, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

In addition his donation this year, Mr. Perry gave $2 million to the governors’ association last year. He contributed $50,000 in September to the First Amendment Alliance, an independent group that has spent at least $800,000 attacking Democratic candidates for Senate in Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky and Nevada, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Including his most recent contributions toAmerican Crossroads, he has given more than $13 million to outside groups able to accept donations of unlimited size in this election cycle.

Mr. Perry is atop a group of megadonors who have contributed $1 million or more this year to Republican groups like American Crossroads and the Republican Governors Association.

Others include Robert B. Rowling, a Texas billionaire; Wayne Hughes, the chairman and founder of Public Storage; Harold Simmons, another Swift Boat financier; Jerry Perenchio, a former chairman of Univision; Trevor Rees-Jones, a Dallas oil-and-gas billionaire; Paul Singer, a Manhattan hedge fund manager; and Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate.

Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign finance and has researched Mr. Perry’s donations, said in an interview that Mr. Perry’s financial clout had made him not only the single biggest donor in Texas in the last decade, but an increasing national presence as well.

“It’s not just Swift Boat, it’s not just Karl Rove,” Mr. Wheat said. “There are a range of federal and state races. He’s a partisan who believes in investing in Republican control at the state and federal level, and people around the country are starting to get to know Bob Perry.”

Mr. Perry’s financial involvement in the Swift Boat campaign against Mr. Kerry particularly rankled Democrats, who saw the effort as an unfair smear, and they have tried to use the issue repeatedly to taint Mr. Perry.

Mr. Perry, as he often does, ignored the attacks and continued making donations. In a rare interview in 2002, Mr. Perry said, “I have been fortunate to gain more financial strength in recent years, and I made a decision to be more involved in campaigns that I think are important.”

Mr. Rove and Mr. Perry worked together in the 1986 Texas governor’s race for William Clements, with Mr. Perry as campaign treasurer and Mr. Rove as a political consultant.

They shared a desire to secure tort reform to limit the liability of corporations in civil litigation. Mr. Rove used the issue in Texas in the late 1980s as a way of galvanizing conservatives, particularly in the business community, and Mr. Perry gave more than $2 million to promote the issue.

Mr. Perry’s company was drawn into a long controversy over the liability issue when a couple claimed a Perry Homes house was defective.

The buyers won an $800,000 arbitration award in 2008. But the state’s Supreme Court overturned the award, leading groups like Texans for Public Justice to charge that Mr. Perry’s many donations to the court’s Republican justices had tainted the ruling. The buyers took the case back to court for trial, and in March a jury ordered Perry Homes to pay $58 million in damages.

 Eric Lichtblau reported from Washington, and Michael Luo from New York.