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Pretzel Logic
Somewhere in the piles of paper shredded in Enron’s 50-story glass tower in Houston may be the remnants of canceled checks written from the former energy giant’s political action committee to Pennsylvania politicians.
The checks don’t represent truckloads of money — $3,500 in donations to five Pennsylvania pols in 1998 and 2000. But this tempest in a dung heap begs asking: What does Enron, President George Bush’s prime campaign funder, which is now seeking protection from its creditors, have to do with the Keystone State?
The answer is that, back in 2000, the now-endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bob Casey Jr. accepted a $1,500 donation from Enron for his auditor general campaign. Four other state pols had also received Enron money: $500 apiece to the campaigns of former Gov. Tom Ridge in 1998, and state Reps. Dwight Evans, John Perzel and John Barley in 2000.
Again, no huge pile of potatoes. But this is document-shredding, 401(k)-wrecking, cooking-the-books Enron, so, even though the Pennsylvania contributions were a minute fraction of the millions of dollars Enron has doled out to politicians and political parties nationwide, it was worth a little poking around.
“The recent news events have shown that Enron has contributed to candidates of both parties from around the country,” said Matt Casey, Junior’s brother and campaign adviser. “Bob was a candidate for major statewide office, so it is not all that surprising that [Enron] would contribute to his campaign.”
That said, the Casey campaign, wanting to avoid the stench of Enron money, opted to get rid of it.
“After seeing recent reports of what transpired,” Casey said, “we decided to give the entire $1,500 to the charity that supports the workers who lost their jobs.”
Casey said the campaign donated the money “in recent weeks” to the Enron Ex-Employee Relief Fund Account (www.eerfa.com), which is located in a place called Humble, Texas.
“I think there is a universal agreement that there is too much money in the campaign,” Matt Casey said. “Oftentimes, you receive contributions from folks who don’t have a direct concern about the future of Pennsylvania. There is a need for campaign-finance reform. Congress has struggled with the constitutional questions involved.”
Casey Jr. is not the only Democratic gubernatorial candidate touched by Enron. The Democratic National Committee took in $310,000 in soft-money contributions while Rendell was DNC chairman.
The Rendell campaign’s initial response was that I should check out another other Enron-related company that contributed to Casey (which I did, and found out it didn’t).
Then, before I could even ask about Rendell’s relationship with Enron, campaign spokesman Dan Fee began to tell me that that was then and this is now.
“There is a difference between what has been going on recently and when Enron was truly a profitable company,” said Fee. “If a company blows up and it has been profitable for 20 years, it is difficult to give back 25-year-old contributions.”
Fee says he’s “heard rumors” that Casey was donating his Enron money, but that he could not be sure until the campaign-finance reports were released.
Would Rendell return any of the soft money given to the DNC by Enron?
“We are checking [campaign] records,” Fee said. “Again, everyone took money from Enron when it looked like it was a profitable business. Now that this stuff is going on, somehow we are expecting politicians to know what auditors from the [Securities and Exchange Commission] didn’t know. Does that mean that we shouldn’t keep the money? Everyone has to look at themselves and answer that question.” (So far, according to fund officials, nearly a dozen pols have contributed about $70,000 as of last week).
So, will Rendell kick into the charity way down in good old Humble, Texas?
The answer, it seems, depends on what was contributed directly to Rendell campaigns, not the DNC.
“Again, I do not know that we have received [any donations from Enron or Enron-related companies or individuals]. We will carefully scrutinize all of our funds. We are checking because you called us. All indications point to the only people who have had direct contact with Enron and Enron affiliates are the Casey camp.”
What sayeth Enron? Zip. An Enron spokesperson did not return a phone call, which was no surprise, considering how busy folks there are destroying documents.
The company’s voicemail message, however, was a hoot.
“On Dec. 2, Enron filed Chapter 11…. While we are confident that we will emerge as an even stronger company, we know this filing raises questions for customers and vendors, so we have set up this hotline….”
Will the Enron stench taint the Casey-Rendell battle? On a national level, there is no doubt that Enron’s reach was far and wide.
But what of the canceled checks whose remains are in some Houston garbage heap?
“The effect in Pennsylvania is hard to say,” said Steve Weiss, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based campaign-watchdog group. “It does raise the question of how much money is too little money to question the objectivity of elected officials.”
