By Tom Hamburger and Greg Hitt
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Lawmakers return Enron
donations
Contributions seen as political liability
By Tom Hamburger and Greg Hitt
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 — House and Senate lawmakers are returning campaign contributions from Enron Corp. as the company’s donations turn from political asset to liability and Enron’s influence becomes more apparent across the nation’s capital.
MORE THAN 70 percent of House and Senate commerce committee members, for example, have received contributions from the company during the past decade, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group the tracks campaign financing. Those panels are among six that are investigating the Enron debacle. Through such donations, the company attempted to cultivate relationships with lawmakers from both parties; it also has established deep ties with the Bush administration.
Several lawmakers close to the company said they received no calls for assistance in recent months as the company was on the verge of collapse, despite being active previously on issues important to Enron. Company officials headed the national lobbying coalition that pursued relief from the corporate alternative-minimum tax, and language easing that tax was included in the economic-stimulus bill that passed the House late last year.Members of the Texas delegation received the most money from the Houston energy-trading company, and several Texans sit on congressional panels investigating Enron. Among them is Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who serves on the Commerce Committee and was the Senate’s top recipient of Enron money. She collected $99,500 since 1989.
Amid the focus on Enron’s congressional donations, many lawmakers have decided to return the money. Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, returned a $100,000 check the company had sent to his panel, which is the campaign arm of House Republicans. Among Democrats, Sen. Jean Carnahan, a member of the Senate Commerce panel, said she would return the $1,000 in donations she received from the company. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, her fellow Missourian, made a similar promise.
Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and senior member of the Commerce Committee, received more than $9,000 from Enron through the years. He suggested that Congress consider consolidating its investigations of Enron, as happened in the Iran-Contra inquiry in the 1980s. In addition to the House and Senate Commerce committees, the House Financial Services and Senate Government Affairs committees are conducting the broadest and most active inquiries. Fewer members of those committees received contributions from Enron than did members of the commerce committees.
While there is no evidence that members of Congress encouraged federal intervention during the company’s decline last year, attention is likely to focus on any legislative or executive-branch decisions that materially aided Enron or made it more difficult to review its operations.
Enron was one of 16 companies that would have received more than $100 million each in tax rebates under the proposed AMT provisions in the House-passed stimulus package. A total of $7.4 billion in rebates would have gone to 16 companies. Enron would have received $254 million, according to calculations by Citizens for Tax Justice, a labor-funded advocacy group.
Under the AMT law, companies get credits for any extra tax they have to pay over and above their regular tax liability. In years when they aren’t subject to the AMT, they can use the credits to offset their regular tax liability, with some limitations.
Enron headed a coalition that pushed for AMT repeal. The final legislation included even more benefits providing credits for past expenditures.
— John D. McKinnon contributed to this article.
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| Source: Center for Responsive Politics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
