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Ohio News |
Article published March 19, 2002
Akron
magnate top campaign donor
Ohio
watchdog group reports givers to state
candidates
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE
COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - Akron industrialist and
charter school magnate David Brennan opened his checkbook more often
to Ohio candidates in the last state election than anyone else,
spreading around $205,000 to Republicans.
According to a
study released yesterday by Ohio Citizen Action into political
giving in the 1999-2000 election cycle, the Ohio Education
Association - the teachers’ union suing the state over its charter
school law - contributed more than $648,000 to candidates, the
highest level of giving by a political action committee.
The
government watchdog organization also raised concerns about what
appears to be an increase in the churning of cash between candidate
committees and political parties making it more difficult to track
who’s giving to whom and how much.
Questions about the
practice hit the news recently when it was revealed that Cleveland
stock broker Frank Gruttadauria, jailed for allegedly diverting $277
million from client accounts, contributed $50,000 to the Hamilton
County Republican Party. The county party is a major campaign giver
to its former chairman, Ohio Treasurer Joe Deters. Mr.
Gruttadauria’s firm was doing business with the treasurer’s
office.
This followed the 2000 Team Ohio controversy in which
Gov. Bob Taft solicited secret contributions for an Ohio Republican
Party operating fund that offered access to the governor for
contributions of $25,000 or more.
Then came revelations last
year about the cash Enron threw at officials on national and state
levels, raising questions about what it expected for its
contributions.
"We’ve had enough scandals ... that’ll get
people really thinking about some of the things we can change," said
Catherine Turcer, Citizen Action campaign reform director. "It’s an
election year, so we have an ability to get candidates to have a
conversation."
In 1999-00, money transferred between
political parties, candidate committees, and caucuses accounted for
47.8 percent of the total $70.5 million raised by candidates, the
study said. That’s up from 43 percent in the 1997-98 cycle and 36
percent from 1995-96.
Ms. Turcer called for passage of
legislation to require full disclosure of contributions, including
those to party operating funds. Such contributions are supposed to
be spent only on operating expenses and are currently exempt from
state disclosure law.
Among the study’s findings:
w
Candidates with the most money won 89 percent of the time.
w
The top five individual contributors gave a total of $788,350, all
to Republicans. They were led by Mr. Brennan, whose controversial
White Hat Management runs a number of charter schools, and Les
Wexner, chairman and chief executive officer of The Limited, who
gave $176,000. The top contributor from northwest Ohio was Richard
Stansley of Sylvania, president of a crushed stone and trucking
conglomerate. He ranked 50th, with contributions of $27,620 in the
two-year period.
w Incumbents raised 3.8 times more than
their challengers. In the case of the Senate, they won re-election
100 percent of the time in 2000 and, in the case of House members,
96.4 percent.
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