July 14, 2008

In New Headache for SMU's Bush Library, Lobbyist Hints at Cash-for-Meetings Deal

Do you want Vice President Dick Cheney’s undivided attention for an hour? Stephen P. Payne, a Texas-based lobbyist, has some advice about how to grease the wheels for such a meeting: Make a six-figure donation to the George W. Bush Presidential Center, a library and museum complex that is scheduled to be built at Southern Methodist University.

When Mr. Payne made that suggestion in a London restaurant last week, he thought he was talking to an agent of the exiled president of Kyrgyzstan. He was actually speaking with undercover representatives of The Times of London, which has posted a video of the encounter.

“I think that the [exiled president’s] family, children, whatever, should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library,” Mr. Payne says in the video. “How big, I don’t know. It would be like maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars, something like that. Not a huge amount, but enough to show that they’re serious.”

Mr. Payne, a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee, runs a Houston lobbying firm called Worldwide Strategic Partners. He has no affiliation with the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation or with Southern Methodist. In a statement released on Sunday, Mr. Payne argues that he was entrapped by the Times agents’ “bizarre leading questions and strange hypothetical comments.”

The controversy arrives just days before critics of the Bush library are planning a last-ditch effort against the project. Later this week, delegates to the annual meeting of the United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdiction, which owns SMU, are expected to vote on a resolution that would withdraw the church’s approval for the library.

The effects of such a vote are not certain. The university maintains that it won full and final approval for the library last year from a different church body, known as the Mission Council. If this week’s resolution passes, the dispute might be sent to the church’s national Judicial Council.

Critics of the presidential-library system have long warned that anonymous donations to presidential foundations can lead to bribery, or the appearance thereof, especially when the president has not yet left office. In 2001, Time reported that the songwriter Denise Rich had donated approximately $400,000 to President Bill Clinton’s library foundation at around the same time that he pardoned her fugitive husband, the financier Marc Rich. And this year The New York Times investigated Mr. Clinton’s relationship with a Canadian mining magnate who had donated heavily to the foundation after using Mr. Clinton to win the good graces of the president of Kazakhstan.

Last year the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would require transparency in donations to presidential libraries. There has been no Senate vote because Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican of Alaska, has placed a hold on the measure.

The Bush foundation and SMU have not yet begun a formal fund-raising campaign for the Bush center, which is expected to cost up to $500-million. But they expect to start raising funds well before Mr. Bush leaves office, according to news reports. (University officials did not reply to The Chronicle’s inquiries today.)

The master agreement between SMU and the Bush foundation contains a provision (beginning on Page 115) that requires the university to work heavily on the fund-raising effort. After $200-million has been raised, 15 percent of any additional funds would be given to the university to support academic projects related to the presidential center. —David Glenn

Comments

1. Money for influence in American politics? Unbelievable! Why would anyone need a 500 million dollar reminder of this president anyway? I wish we could all just forget about him and his failed policies.

   — Brad G.    Jul 14, 03:46 PM    #

2. Another chapter in the strange, sordid history of the Bush administration. I am considering donating some Classics Illustrated comic books to the library when it’s completed.

   — Al    Jul 14, 04:15 PM    #

3. Yet another instance of shameless bribery or solicitation of bribery. And in all fairness, no less with Clinton (ex-Pres or Senator) than with Bush (or his stooges). No matter who wins the elections, we are governed by thugs.

   — Bill Edwards    Jul 14, 04:30 PM    #

4. Great idea, Al!

   How big a library do you need to hold a copy of “My Pet Goat”? Since most of his activities were
   covert there can’t be that many papers.

   — clk    Jul 14, 04:48 PM    #

5. I don’t even want jackass Cheney to know I’m here.

   — Savage Detective    Jul 14, 05:24 PM    #

6. Now, now … we have to think about future historians who will be trying to figure out in 2060 if whoever is President then (assuming then damage done by Bush hasn’t deep-sixed the US) outranks him as the worst in US history. I ho

   — CW    Jul 14, 08:39 PM    #

7. I was just on Amazon’s children’s section looking for books to contribute. On my list? “The Little Mouse Who Lied,” “The Emperor Has No Brain,” and “But God Said I Could, Mommy.” They are sure to be enjoyed by all those who visit.

   — TolkienFan    Jul 15, 08:00 AM    #

8. One of the reasons Hillary can’t be considered as Obama’s VP is because Slick Willie refuses to disclose contributors to his library.

   — Elman Terwilliger    Jul 15, 11:47 AM    #

9. As Americans, we must honor the man and his office. The man will be judged by history, not ‘hystery’!

   — Fred Anderson    Jul 19, 04:49 PM    #

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