Analysis: Enron's Political Contributions
W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 14, 2002 -- The more powerful Enron became, the more money it gave away to political candidates and parties. Enron was so powerful, a majority of Congress has benefited from the energy company's largesse.
An ABCNEWS analysis of campaign finance data shows that as the now-collapsed energy giant grew in size in the second half of the 1990s, it tripled its giving in three years to become one of the largest soft-money contributors to federal candidates by 2000, and spending millions of dollars lobbying Texas officials.
To avoid any potential conflicts of interest, many big-name public officials, including at least two federal judges, the Texas state attorney general, and U.S. attorney general have recused themselves from Enron investigations.
Political observers note the irony: The top recipients of Enron's money, including Attorney General John Ashcroft and Texas Attonrey General John Cornyn, are at pains to prove they haven't been influenced by the company's donations.
But Enron's political contributions are so extensive that finding a team of congressional investigators who hasn't received Enron money is nearly impossible, according to various campaign finance analysts. The sheer number of individual contributions may hamper, and ultimately scuttle efforts to determine whether the contributions influenced legislation.
"Enron was one of the largest most active political players in Washington," said Charles Lewis, executive director of the watchdog Center for Public Integrity.
"They spread money all over Washington over the past decade," and spent "millions for both parties," he said.
The House Commerce committee's investigation into Enron is expected to be one of the most far-rearching. But both committee Chairman Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and ranking Democratic member John Dingell of Michigan reported hard-money contributions from Enron.
Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson would not comment on the donations made to Tauzin or to other members of the Commerce committee."We'll conduct the most aggresive investigation in congressional history," he said.
Show Them the Money
At the heart of the Enron investigations is a philosophical debate over campaign finance reform. Partly because the political stakes are so high, and partly because the parties hold different views on bread-and-butter economic issues, ideology will seep into the congressional hearings.
Banning soft money is the goal of most reform reformers. Soft money, or unregulated donations, is usually given to political parties for "get out of the vote" activities, but often ends up paying for "issue advertisements" that recommend one candidate over another. Hard money can be used to directly promote candidates; federal law restricts donations to $1000 for the general election and the primary.
House Democrats say they are three votes shy of a majority on the soft money issue, though the Republican leadership has hesitated to bring the measure to a vote. They
are likely to push harder for campaign finance reform, but because so many Democrats were Enron recipients themselves, it may make difficult the scoring of any direct political points. Instead, senior Democratic strategists tell ABCNEWS they are likely to focus on the close, personal ties between Enron and the Bush administration.
Republicans won't have any of it. They point to an intense lobbying campaign by Enron to influence the Clinton administration's policies toward oil pipelines. Philosophically, Republicans want to put the emphasis on individual wrongdoers, arguing that big structural changes will hinder the flow of capital and constrain economic growth.
The Hard Data
Enron gave about 70 percent of its hard and soft money to Republicans and GOP causes in recent years, the data shows.
Through the first six months of this year, Enron's lobbyists billed the company more than $800,000 for their work on several dozen pieces of legislation.
In 2000, Enron was part of a big effort by industry groups to keep the federal government from regulating certain types of commodities trading. An Enron lobbyist reportedly wrote part of that legislation. And an Enron congressional reportedly brought the bill back to life when it seemed to be defeated.
"This was as full court, hard-pressed lobbying as I have seen in my almost quarter century dealing with government matters," said Michael Greenberger, a former government regulator.
The Center for Public Integrity released a report today showing that 14 top Bush administration officials held stock in Enron before the prices plummeted. Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, listed more than $250,000 worth of Enron stock when he filed his latest personal financial disclosure form. And Peter Fisher, the undersecretary of commerce who received more than a half-dozen phone calls from Enron executives in the months before the company's collapse, owned more than $1,000 worth of equities.
According to Federal Election Commission data maintained on the private Web site politicalmoneyline.com, in the 1995 and 1996 midterm election year, Enron gave a bit more than $375,000 in soft-money contributions. In 1998, it handed out nearly $540,000 to federal candidates. And for the 2000 general election cycle, the company donated more than $1,165,240. Year after year, Enron was the top soft=money donor from Texas, outpacing its nearest rivals by tens of thousands of dollars. Most of this money went to Republicans.
In Texas
In Texas, Enron's political action commitee was one of the state's top donors. In the first six months of this year , Enron's PAC gave more than $250,000 to state politicians and political interests.
An analysis by Texas for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog, concludes that Enron spent more than $2.5 million to lobby state officials over a span of just four years. That period saw the passage of the state's landmark energy deregulation bill
Seven of the nine justices on Texas's highest court have been given money by Enron. So was Gov. Rick Perry and the next five highest-ranking elected officials in the state.
Though President Bush said last week that Enron supported his opponent, then-Gov.Ann Richards, in their 1997 election contest, state records show that Enron donated more than three times the amount of money to Bush as it did to Richards. In fact, Enron gave more to George W. Bush than any other candidate, according to Texas State Ethics Commission records.
As congressional and executive branch investigations into the Enron collapse gear up, good-government groups are injecting their expertise into the mix.
"There's an upside to all of this. With thousand losing their pensions and dozens losing jobs, it focuses national attention on the issue," said Seth Amgott, a spokesman for Common Cause, an advocacy group.
Common Cause, the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics have all issued positition papers on Enron. .
ABCNEWS' Jackie Judd and Matthew Silverstein contributed to this report.