Enron's Ties to a Leader of House Republicans Went Beyond Contributions to His Campaign
Enron used as lobbyists two influential members of Mr. DeLay's informal kitchen cabinet,
Ed Buckham and Karl Gallant.
Mr. Buckham, a former chief of staff for Mr. DeLay, has worked closely on
strategy with Mr.DeLay's political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority.
And Mr.Gallant, who once served as that committee's director, went on to
run the Republican Majority Issues Committee, a group widely
considered close to Mr. DeLay, whose allies once hoped that the
issues committee would serve as a counterweight to unions by
financing get-out-the-vote efforts for conservative candidates.
Records also show that Enron and its executives made sizable
donations to each of the groups. The 2000 disclosure statement for Mr. Gallant's
committee includes a $50,000 contribution from Enron's chairman, Kenneth L. Lay,
and a $25,000 contribution from Joseph W. Sutton, a vice chairman
of Enron who left the company in November. Before that year, disclosure
was not required for gifts to issues groups."
January 16, 2002
The New York Times
By ALISON MITCHELL
W ASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - It
is well known that the
Enron Corporation
lavished money and attention on
political figures all over the
nation's capital. But for an
insight into how carefully the
company cultivated members of
Congress, look no further than its
efforts to please its home state
powerhouse, Representative Tom
DeLay.
Like other members of the Texas
delegation, Mr. DeLay, a
Republican whose district is in
the Houston suburbs near
Enron's headquarters, received
sizable personal campaign
donations from Enron - $28,900
since 1989, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics.
Yet Mr. DeLay, the House
majority whip, is not just another
lawmaker. The donations were
only a starting point.
Enron used as lobbyists two
influential members of Mr.
DeLay's informal kitchen cabinet,
Ed Buckham and Karl Gallant.
Mr. Buckham, a former chief of
staff for Mr. DeLay, has worked
closely on strategy with Mr.
DeLay's political action
committee, Americans for a
Republican Majority. And Mr.
Gallant, who once served as that
committee's director, went on to
run the Republican Majority
Issues Committee, a group widely
considered close to Mr. DeLay,
whose allies once hoped that the
issues committee would serve as
a counterweight to unions by
financing get-out-the-vote efforts
for conservative candidates.
Records also show that Enron
and its executives made sizable
donations to each of the groups.
The 2000 disclosure statement for Mr. Gallant's
committee includes a $50,000 contribution from Enron's
chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, and a $25,000 contribution
from Joseph W. Sutton, a vice chairman of Enron who left
the company in November. Before that year, disclosure
was not required for gifts to issues groups.
Americans for a Republican Majority received a $10,000
corporate contribution from Enron in 2000 for its
unregulated "soft money" account. And according to the
Center for Responsive Politics, the group also received
$47,250 in regulated contributions in 1995 through 2000
from Enron, its political action committee or individuals
tied to the company.
Mr. DeLay's spokesman, Stuart Roy, said there was
nothing unusual about Mr. DeLay's relationship with
Enron. He described the company as "an
equal-opportunity political donor and an
equal-opportunity employer, as well, hiring lobbyists who
were both Republicans and Democrats and giving money
to both sides, including a third of House Democrats and
half of the Senate Democrats."
Mr. Gallant said he would not discuss his dealings with
Enron, citing a confidentiality clause in his contract. Mr.
Buckham did not return a phone call, and an aide said he
would be unavailable until later this month.
Mr. DeLay has been unabashed about demanding that
business support Republicans, whom he considers
commerce's natural ally. Aides said he froze Enron out of
his office for some of the past year because it had hired
Linda Robinson, a Democrat who was a senior Treasury
official in the Clinton administration, to run its
Washington office.
Mr. DeLay has previously urged lobbying firms and trade
associations to install more Republicans in executive
positions. Indeed, the House Ethics Committee wrote a
warning, but took no official action, after he tried to
persuade a lobbying group not to hire a Democrat as its
president in 1998.
Still, whatever the tensions last year, Mr. Delay and
Enron had a natural alliance. In his days in the Texas
Capitol, Mr. DeLay was called Dereg by some because of
his support of business. And in Congress he has been a
longtime proponent of energy deregulation, an issue dear
to Enron.
Moreover, last year he was the chief Republican strategist
who pushed through the House energy legislation that
was favored by Enron and many other energy companies.
Three years ago, when Enron lost out to a Japanese
company in bidding to build a power plant in the
Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, a United
States territory in the Pacific, Mr. DeLay asked for the
bidding to be reopened.
In some ways, Mr. DeLay's support for Enron was a matter
of constituent service. Mr. Roy said that Enron's success
had always been important to Mr. DeLay because of the
hundreds of people the company employed in his
Congressional district and the thousands of others in
nearby Houston.
"Obviously, DeLay would not be doing his job if he were
not trying to help job creation by a major company in
Houston," Mr. Roy said.
He said Mr. DeLay had never asked that the company hire
his former aides as lobbyists.
It is also the case that Enron cultivated the other side of
the aisle. For example, Michael Lewan, a former chief of
staff to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut
Democrat who is running one investigation into the
company's collapse, worked for Enron for a time, a
spokesman for Mr. Lieberman confirmed. The spokesman,
Dan Gerstein, said Mr. Lewan, who remains a political
adviser to Mr. Lieberman, had severed his ties to the
company.
Enron officials in Washington referred questions to a
company official in Houston who did not return a call.
Having a lobbyist who is close to a lawmaker can help a
company get attention. In 1999 Mr. Buckham told Mr.
DeLay that the Japanese company had successfully bid to
build the power plant in the Northern Marianas. Mr.
DeLay wrote his letter asking that the bidding be
reopened.
Mr. Roy said there had been rumors at the time that some
bidders had been locked out of the competition. He said
Mr. DeLay's letter did not advocate on behalf of Enron,
but for "a fair and open bidding system." Mr. Roy said he
did not know who won the final contract.
A former aide to Mr. DeLay who did not want to be
identified said of Enron, "They certainly through Ed
Buckham got more attention than people who didn't have
Ed Buckham."
After Enron hired Ms. Robertson for its Washington office
in late 2000, relations with Mr. DeLay became more
distant. "Relations were chilly all last year," Mr. Roy said.
But as the member of the House Republican leadership
shepherding Mr. Bush's program through the House, Mr.
DeLay pulled off a stunning upset and built a coalition of
Republicans and Democrats to pass energy legislation
sought by many companies, including Enron.
Mr. Roy said Mr. DeLay had received no warnings that
Enron was in deep financial trouble. With many of the
hard-pressed Enron employees in his district, Mr. DeLay
called the situation "heartbreaking" in an interview with a
Houston television station this week and said his goal now
was to find out whether there had been criminal
wrongdoing by the company.
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