Bush fund-raisers enjoy access

One fund-raiser insists big contributors don't expect anything in return.
Toledo Blade
DALLAS -- Long before George W. Bush began campaigning for the White House, his family built a fund-raising network of wealthy supporters to bankroll his political ambitions and propel him to the presidency.
The network -- including oilmen, lobbyists, developers and agricultural executives -- became accustomed to the Bush family's style of government, with George W. Bush as governor of Texas and brother Jeb Bush as governor of Florida.
The political financiers made an investment in the Bush family, an investment that paid off.
By 2004, President Bush's re-election campaign had assembled 66 elite fund-raisers in Texas and 55 in Florida. Some of the supporters, known as Pioneers and Rangers for raising at least $100,000 or $200,000, respectively, say they collected contributions for Bush because he was a trusted friend with common political ideas.
Some, though, acknowledge that being a prolific fund-raiser translates into access for those who want to influence government decisions.
"If you support someone, it's going to give you a leg up on getting an audience. There's nothing wrong with that," said Pioneer Charles Beggs Moncrief of Moncrief Oil in Fort Worth, Texas.
Contracts to supporters
Since Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the president's elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients, a Blade investigation shows.
In Florida, massive sugar companies and development firms led by Bush Pioneers and Rangers have reaped millions of dollars from government policies, which environmentalists say have sided with sprawl and development over the restoration of the Everglades.
The Bush strongholds of Texas and Florida became the roots of a fund-raising tree that by 2004 had enlisted 548 Pioneers and Rangers nationwide.
Members of President Bush's prestigious fund-raising clubs in Texas and Florida -- who raised at least $17.1 million of the $40 million collected for his re-election effort last year in the two states -- stood to win millions of dollars through federal energy, environmental, or agricultural policies. Others had federal contracts to supply accounting services to government agencies or electricity to the Department of Defense, and some won high-ranking appointments and ambassadorships.
'Don't need anything'
Bill Ceverha, a Bush Pioneer and political strategist who spent 12 years in the Texas Legislature, thinks that most of Bush's key fund-raisers didn't expect anything from the president besides sound governance.
"These are people of a stature that they don't want any appointments. They don't need anything from the government," said Ceverha, who works as a political adviser to Louis Beecherl, an oilman and Bush Pioneer who declines to speak with the press. "They are just doing it because they believe in the cause."
In the early 1990s, Ceverha was among the Texans who helped persuade George W. Bush to run for governor. Today, there are photos of Bush on the wall of his Dallas office, and Ceverha says he and his wife are invited to White House Christmas parties.
He said being a Bush Pioneer or Ranger provides access but no guarantees from the president.
"I don't know any of them who are looking for anything in particular," Ceverha said. "They know they are going to get an audience when they go to Washington, not necessarily with the president, but with this senator or that senator, or this congressman."
Loyal following
As Texas' governor during the 1990s, Bush established a loyal following that included deep-pocketed political financiers by selling them on his straightforward style of leadership and looking out for their interests in the statehouse, said Tom Smith of the Texas chapter of Public Citizen, a nonprofit public interest organization.
"The Texas Pioneers and Rangers learned through the Bush gubernatorial era that their investments would pay off, so they were more than willing to be leaders when Bush began to run for president," Smith said.
Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim, the chairman of Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride, is adamant that his fund-raising activities aren't done for "selfish reasons."
"I do it, first of all, for what I believe is right, and people I contribute to have the same philosophy I have," said Pilgrim, a Bush Pioneer. "You know, I'm a conservative. I believe in integrity. I believe in a minimum of regulations. I don't believe in high taxes."