Corporate sponsorship of Rick Perry's partisan job piracy

By Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers Digest

"If you want to live free -- free from overtaxation, free from overlitigation, free from overregulation … move to Texas." That's the pitch Texas Gov. Rick Perry just made to business executives in Maryland in the latest of his brazenly partisan job-poaching trips to states led by Democratic governors. In advance of the trip, Perry ran ads that explicitly criticized Maryland's Martin O'Malley, claiming to business owners that "unfortunately, your governor has made Maryland the tax and fee state."

In an earlier trip to Missouri, Perry's meddling in another state's policymaking was even more direct. Arriving amid a debate over a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon of a regressive tax-cut bill, Perry gave a speech in which he appealed to legislators: "Grow Missouri! Override that veto!" (The override failed.)

My colleagues and I at Good Jobs First have just published a report questioning whether Perry's partisan job piracy is being financed in part with taxpayer dollars. Many of the dues-paying members of TexasOne, the entity paying for Perry's trips, are municipal economic development corporations, which receive a portion of local sales tax receipts.

It turns out that an even larger share, roughly half, of TexasOne's budget comes from the payments made by businesses. Corporations enjoying the benefits of Perry's laissez-faire policies in Texas are bankrolling him to spread that gospel to Blue States while he tries to steal their jobs and simultaneously raises his personal political profile on the national stage.

The cozy relationship between Perry and Texas big business is nothing new. As Texans for Public Justice has shown in a long series of reports, Perry has perfected the art of crony capitalism during his dozen years in the governor's office. Companies whose executives and investors have been among the most generous contributors to Perry's races show up on lists of the largest state contractors and the recipients of state economic development subsidies, and they tend to get favorable treatment from regulatory agencies run by Perry appointees.

This pattern extends to the companies participating in TexasOne. For example, Shell Oil ($50,000 in annual payments to TexasOne) received a $2 million subsidy award (for its Motiva refinery joint venture) from the Perry-controlled Texas Enterprise Fund. Road-builder Williams Brothers Construction ($25,000 a year to TexasOne according to one source; $100,000 a year according to another) has received hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts from the Texas Department of Transportation.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas, whose members are appointed by the governor, awarded huge contracts to a group of companies to build transmission lines from wind farms in the western part of the state to the major population centers in central Texas. One of these contracts, worth $1.3 billion, was awarded to Oncor Electric Delivery (a $25,000 member of TexasOne).

On the regulatory front, a prime example is Contran Corporation, which is currently paying $100,000 a year to TexasOne. Contran is the holding company controlled by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, a heavy contributor to Perry's state races. Contran ponied up $1 million for the super PAC that backed Perry's 2012 presidential race. Earlier, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, whose members are also appointed by the governor, awarded a franchise for a low-level nuclear waste dump to a subsidiary of Contran called Waste Control Specialists.

In 2011, after Waste Control was granted controversial permission to store nuclear material brought in from other states, a Dallas Morning News editorial (January 11, 2011) declared: "Far too much about this process stinks of the influence that one very rich person wields as a million-dollar campaign contributor to Gov. Rick Perry."

Major contributors to TexasOne include large corporations such as AT&T and Capital One with business interests that extend far beyond the borders of Texas. Some of these, such as Verizon, are headquartered in states targeted by Perry's partisan job-poaching trips.

It is unclear whether these companies realize the potential problems they could face by helping to sponsor Perry's attack on governors in states where they have a significant presence. They could alienate their political allies in those states and might also incur the wrath of their residents.

We've seen how consumer-oriented companies can risk losing customers if they are identified as financial backers of controversial groups or causes. Dozens of large companies ended their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) when it became identified with heated issues such as minority voter suppression and stand-your-ground gun laws.

For companies serving national markets, bankrolling high-profile and partisan interstate job piracy could also become risky business.