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Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz "God's Sugar Daddy"School voucher proponent James Leininger has spent millions trying to buy political power in TexasWhile the philanthropic community has been abuzz about recent reports that billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the world's second wealthiest man, will be giving a large part of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a less well-known Texas billionaire, James Leininger, has allocated his millions for different purposes: He's dedicated a large chunk of money to insuring that the religious right maintains its dominance over the Texas political landscape. Leininger has initiated an "unprecedented effort" to "buy a Legislature that will turn his obsession -- a reckless private school voucher plan -- into law." Buffet's gift to the BMGF, according to Business Week, "could ultimately double the size of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to $60 billion, creating a mega-philanthropy the likes of which the world has never seen." The money, the magazine pointed out, will allow the Gateses foundation to "hand out a staggering $3 billion a year in grants ... [and] create unprecedented resources ... [to be] use[d] to address such vexing problems as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in developing nations, and the high school dropout rate in the U.S." Meanwhile, back in Texas, the relatively unknown Leininger, a San Antonio-based physician and businessman who made a fortune largely by selling specialty hospital beds, and who has been a major contributor to conservative causes and candidates for years, is becoming much more visible due to his quest to spread school vouchers throughout the state. According to the Texas Freedom Network (website), Leininger initiated an "unprecedented effort" to "buy a Legislature that will turn his obsession -- a reckless private school voucher plan -- into law." The Spring 2006 issue of TFN's Network News reported that "by the March 7 primary elections, Dr. Leininger had given nearly $2.8 million to pro-voucher candidates and political action committees." Network News also noted that Leininger had donated more than $1.8 million "to one PAC funding far-right challengers to just five GOP House incumbents ... [who] had dared to vote against a voucher scheme last May." For more than a decade, the Austin, Texas-based Texas Freedom Network, "a nonpartisan, grassroots organization of more than 23,000 religious and community leaders," has been a "watchdog, monitoring far-right issues, organizations, money and leaders." While Leininger's most recent donations yielded mixed results in the March elections -- two pro-voucher candidates won seats on the State Board of Education -- for more than a decade he has been unrelenting in his support for right wing candidates and causes. Over that time he has "poured millions" into state politics, spending nearly $10 million since 1997 alone. In a report titled "Meet ‘God's Sugar Daddy," columnist Molly Ivins pointed out that Leininger "is known as the Daddy Warbucks of Texas social conservatism -- or, as the San Antonio Current ... called him, ‘God's Sugar Daddy.'" Reporter Debbie Nathan described Leininger's extensive conservative agenda in a piece for the Austin Chronicle: Few know that his anti-abortion and Christian-school-board campaign giving is only the tip of an iceberg of one-man benevolence -- much of it sunk into right-wing projects that have changed the political landscape in Texas, and to some extent, the nation...Hardly anyone is aware of the role he has played in making the Texas Supreme Court one of the most anti-consumer, pro-business judicial bodies in the nation; or about his instrumental and sometimes smear-tactic efforts to pack the State Board of Education with Christian conservatives; or how he has been associated with a group implicated in federal campaign finance scandals; or of his support for attempts to gut the Endangered Species Act; or the way he funds anti-choice groups. Leininger, a native of Indiana, is more than just the hospital-bed guy: He has extensive business holdings that, according to the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch, includes:
According to Debbie Nathan, Leininger is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which split from other Presbyterians over civil rights and feminism. He worships at Faith Presbyterian Church, where the pastor is Tim Hoke. GOP takes Texas; religious right takes the GOPOver the past two decades, the Republican Party has become the state's majority party. And at the same time, the party has come under the domination of the religious right. Earlier this year, the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund published "The Anatomy of Power: Texas and the Religious Right in 2006," a report that "explore[d] the growing power of far-right religious extremists in the state's electoral politics." According to the report: Texas politicians, it appears are particularly willing to appeal overtly for the support of religious conservatives. This willingness has grown as the religious right has moved in little more than a decade from the fringes of the political realm to the halls of Texas politics and government. The TFN report found that:
The TFN report, which devotes an entire section to Leininger, pointed out that he has been a major player in the GOP's sharp turn to the right in the state. Although he's made a fortune with his vast business investments, Leininger's "most significant investments have been in the careers of politicians who back his public policy agenda, including tort reform, private school vouchers, pushing religious conservative principles in public schools, and opposition to abortion and gay rights." What sets Leininger apart from other big-time donors to right wing causes in Texas such as Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and East Texas chicken tycoon Bo Pilgrim, is his laser-like "ideological focus." It's also clear that Leininger is in it for the long run. In 1989, he founded the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF - website) a conservative "think tank" that "produces policy papers on a variety of pet conservative causes." TPPF was a prominent player in the state's "textbook wars," a classic culture wars battle that supported "social conservatives seeking to censor public school textbooks because of perceived anti-American, anti-free enterprise and anti-Christian bias." As the Texas Freedom Network report documents, Leininger has developed a "vast web of interlocking and overlapping pressure groups" and political action committees to promote his agenda. At this point, his main interest is "building his influence in elections to statewide offices and the Texas Legislature." "Generous campaign contributions from the Leininger camp helped Republicans sweep all statewide races in 1998 and 2002. During the 2002 election cycle, the Leiningers "gave nearly $1.5 million to Republican candidates for the House and Senate, conservative political action committees, the state Republican Party and a national Republican committee that funds state election races." Most recently, Leininger's efforts have gone into "purging from office moderate Republicans" who have not been reliable enough for Leininger. He gave more than $2 million to two new political action committees -- the Texas Republican Legislative Campaign Committee and the Future of Texas Alliance -- to unseat Republicans opposed to his school vouchers initiatives. While he didn't fully succeed this time, one of Leininger's ultimate goals is gaining absolute control of the State Board of Education. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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