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Friday, February 28, 1997

After White House coffee for Texans, contributions flowed to Democrats

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Campaign dollars weren't flowing from Texas as rapidly as desired last year, so the Clinton-Gore campaign arranged for a group of well-heeled Texans to have coffee with President Clinton at the White House.

In the six weeks after that August coffee, a handful of the guests pumped more than $157,000 into Democratic Party coffers, according to an Associated Press review of campaign contributions.

The Texas coffee klatsch - attended by former Gov. Dolph Briscoe, Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes and other party activists - was one of more than 100 coffees held at the White House in the last two years.

Clinton readily acknowledged this week that he hoped the coffees and other meetings with potential donors would result in contributions. But he denied any illegal solicitation of money and told reporters Wednesday there was "no price tag on the events."

Documents released this week by the White House - which place Clinton at the center of an all-out fund-raising push - show the Aug. 23 Texas gathering was scheduled because the party wasn't meeting its fund-raising goals in Texas.

In a July 14, 1996, memo to White House officials, Clinton campaign manager Peter Knight said Texas party officials were $2 million shy of their target. The coffee, shoehorned into Clinton's already crowded fund-raising schedule, was projected to bring in $500,000.

Over the past two years, the Democratic Party raised $27 million from 350 people who attended the White House sessions or companies that were represented there.

An AP review of soft-money contributions, which donors can make without limit to political parties, shows that 11 of the 21 guests at the Texas coffee contributed $743,000 over the last two years to the Democratic Party.

The Texas guests chipped in at least $605,000 more in direct contributions to individual campaigns, political action committees, and local, state and national party committees. Unlike soft-money donations, direct contributions are limited.

The figures on soft-money and direct contributions don't include the hundreds of thousands of dollars more given by spouses and children of the Texas guests - or the funds the Texans may have solicited from others on behalf of the party.

Knight and some of the Texas guests said this week that there was no solicitation made in advance or at the coffee.

Houston trial lawyer Lee Godfrey, who gave $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee nine days before the coffee and another $10,000 a month later, said there was "absolutely" no fund-raising pitch linked to the event.

"Nobody said 'Give us X dollars' or that sort of thing," Godfrey said Wednesday. "I had given money to the Democratic Party for a long time before that and quite a few times since then."

Godfrey and a fellow coffee klatsch participant, Houston lawyer Arthur Schechter, acknowledged that being invited to meet with the president isn't likely to prove a fund-raising deterrent.

"There was a big push to get money in," said Schechter, who was finance chairman for the Clinton campaign and DNC in Texas. But, he added, "We never, never, never made a quid pro quo for any invitation to the White House."

After the events, he acknowledged, "I'm sure that all of these people, especially those who hadn't given any money, were contacted and asked for money - but not as a quid pro quo for going and having coffee with the president."

Schechter contributed $62,400 to the party in the last two years, including $30,000 two weeks before the coffee and $1,400 two weeks after. The invitation came "days" before the event, he recalled.

It's no surprise that Texas contributors were giving money in the period surrounding the coffee, Schechter said, noting that Clinton attended major fund raisers in Houston in June and September. Hillary Rodham Clinton also made a fund-raising swing through Texas that summer and Texas party activists were asked to raise $400,000 for the president's birthday gala in New York in August.

"If they hadn't given money by then, I wouldn't have been doing my job," said Schechter, who also attended a coffee klatsch in early 1995.

During the 30 or so minutes with the president at the coffees, Schechter said discussion "literally ranged from the sublime to the very mundane."

"Nobody was asking for favors," he said. "I think everybody felt a great sense of awe that they were there."

Only seven of the 21 guests at the Texas event didn't make any soft-money contributions to the party in the last two years, including Mauro, who was Clinton's Texas campaign chairman and state Democratic Party Chairman Bill White - both of whom were devoting their energies to putting Texas in Clinton's win column. Republican Bob Dole carried the state. Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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