Change You Can Earmark Part Two

Obama Receives $2.5 Million in Fundraising Help from Recipients of Earmarks

According to Newsweek, last summer, watchdog groups requested that Illinois Senator Barack Obama share records involving his smaller donors. He declined, and now new information is surfacing around his campaign accepting small donations from apparently nonexistent people whose contributions add up to sums exceeding the legal limit by a factor of four. While some of these small donors are now creating problems for Senator Obama, there are a number of large donors that have been causing him trouble for some time now.

The simple magnitude of donations to Senator Obama from recipients of his earmarks is staggering. He directly received over $500,000 dollars in donations from people who sit on the board of organizations he earmarked money to. Beyond that, he received a total of about $2,000,000 dollars in fundraising help from bundlers who received earmarks. In total, these $2.5 million in contributions raise important questions about Sen. Obama’s earmarking habits. This article highlights troubling cases in which Sen. Obama has given taxpayer money to some of his biggest fundraisers.

In 2008, Sen. Obama increased the Adler Planetarium earmark by 900% when the chairman and two vice chairmen together gave close to $250,000 to his presidential campaign. This story, originally researched by our group, made it to top level news organizations such as the Washington Times, Hot Air, Red State, The National Review and number of other news outlets. After further research, it has become clear that Senator Obama is handing out taxpayer money to more than just the members of the Adler Planetarium.

A group of Obama donors comprised of Devon Bruce, Lawrence Eppley, James Montgomery, B. Joseph White, Dwight McBride, Niranjan Shah, and Pratima Shah cause some suspicion. They sit on the boards of the University of Illinois CADRE project and the National Center for Supercomputing at the University of Illinois, institutions that together have received almost $10,000,000 in federal funds. On the surface, these earmarks seem normal, but the fact that a select group of high powered donors sit on both boards and have received almost ten million dollars of taxpayer money is particularly suspicious. Even beyond this particular incident, our new research shows that two families in particular, the Crowns and the McKeevers, have very close political and financial ties to Sen. Obama.

Since 2006, Senator Obama has earmarked $7 million to the Children’s Memorial Hospital (CMH) in Chicago.  While helping a Children’s Hospital is without a doubt charitable, our research shows that Sen. Obama’s motives may have been somewhat political. James and Paula Crown are a politically active couple who sit on the board of the hospital. They are also bundlers for Sen. Obama’s campaign, contributing over $500,000 to his presidential campaign. Strong support for Sen. Obama is no abnormality amongst other board members either. Vicki Heyman, the chairwoman of the board, is also a bundler for the Obama campaign who raised over $200,000 for him. In addition, one third of the board members donated to Sen. Obama’s Senate and Presidential campaigns, their donations totaling well over $200,000 in the last four years alone.

Senator Obama’s support for Crown family endeavors isn’t simply contained to CMH either. In 2005, Lester and James Crown sat on the board of General Dynamics, a firm that received a $1.3 million from Sen. Obama. In addition to monetary ties, members of the Crown family also hold influential positions within his campaign. Both James and Paula Crown are members of his National Finance Committee with James Crown currently co-chairing the Senator’s Illinois financial committee. While obtaining funds for a children’s hospital is certainly a good cause, Sen. Obama’s deep political ties to the Crowns, ties rooted mainly in this earmark, cast some serious doubt on the purity of his intentions. 

Another suspicious earmark involves the University of Illinois and the McKeever family. Since 2006, Sen. Obama has earmarked $11.2 million to the University of Illinois. This earmark is suspect for two reasons. First, 79% of the board members donated to the Illinois Senator’s presidential campaign. The fact that Obama donors outnumber non-donors by more than three to one by itself makes their $11.2 million earmark very questionable. The second irregular part of this earmark is the connection to the McKeever family. Lester McKeever and his family have together donated $43,129 to Sen. Obama’s campaign. Jeffrey Larry, Mr. McKeever’s son in law, is another important donor. He works at Katten Muchin Rosenmann law firm where a number of employees have donated significantly to the Obama campaign. This concerted effort by the McKeever family, despite being dispersed across the country, connected to the nearly politically homogenous University of Illinois board of directors elicits much concern about how much sway the McKeevers and other board members hold.

All in all, the relationships to the McKeevers, the Crowns, Frank Clark, and a host of new stories point to real questions about the legitimacy of Obama’s claim to be a new kind of politician. These are serious issues and the American public deserves more than sniping third party groups and evasive answers from the candidates. For that reason, we have decided to post the bulk of the raw data we collected at a publicly viewable Google document. Beyond that, we have posted a document for easy viewing that contains all of the major websites that we used. Our most helpful resources were the Center for Responsive Politics and Senator Obama’s own website.

In his relatively short political career, Barack Obama has already received $2.5 million in fundraising help from people who sit on the boards of organizations he has earmarked to, with that sum only including the research our group has done. Within those earmarks lie some interesting situations that seem to suggest that Sen. Obama is willing to give out federal funds to people with whom he has strong financial ties. Whether or not this research diminishes his image as free of the toxic culture of Washington is for the American Public to decide, but we sincerely hope that this article helps them make an informed choice.

Acknowledgements: William and Mary College Republicans