Ralph Reed: Living on a Prayer

By Andrew Wheat, Texas Observer. Posted February 9, 2006.

Evidence is mounting that former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed Jr., along with a former leader of the Texas Christian Coalition, may have illegally lobbied Texas state officials on behalf of crooked federal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients.

Three Austin-based reform groups -- Common Cause Texas, Public Citizen Texas and Texans For Public Justice, the latter of which employs the author of this article -- urged Travis County prosecutors last December to investigate whether Reed violated Texas' lobby-registration laws four years ago. Correspondence between Abramoff and Reed -- the ex-Christian Coalition leader now running for lieutenant governor of Georgia -- suggests that Reed lobbied Texas officials on behalf of Abramoff's Indian gambling clients without registering as a Texas lobbyist. The $5 million in gambling money that Abramoff reportedly paid Reed for his services would make it one of the largest lobby contracts ever made public in Texas.

The Reed campaign, which did not respond to three requests for comment for this story, previously issued a statement saying that Texas' lobby registration law does not cover the kind of "grassroots" organizing that Reed's firm conducted in Texas. Travis County Attorney David Escamilla told the Texas Observer at press time that his office was still investigating the complaint.

During Jack Abramoff's reign as chair of the College Republican National Committee in the early 1980s, Ralph Reed and GOP operative Grover Norquist each did stints as that committee's executive director. Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, later helped Reed organize the remnants of evangelist Pat Robertson's failed 1988 presidential bid into the politically potent Christian Coalition in 1989. Reed and Norquist resurfaced a decade later to help Abramoff extract tens of millions of dollars from Indian gambling interests and other clients. Now Abramoff has promised to walk federal prosecutors through his vast web of political corruption, thereby endangering the careers and reputations of members of Congress, other lobbyists and Ralph Reed -- just as the preternaturally young-looking evangelist makes his first bid for public office. These prosecutors have subpoenaed records from Reed but have not identified him as a target of their investigation.

An Observer investigation reveals that Reed may not have been the only Christian Coalition leader working secretly for Abramoff's gambling clients. Reed-Abramoff correspondence indicates that Chuck Anderson, then-head of the Texas Christian Coalition, also helped lobby Texas officials on behalf of Abramoff's Indian gaming clients. Anderson, who now works for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, also appears to have worked on Texas gambling issues without registering.

Additionally, the Texas Observer has found evidence that Ralph Reed clandestinely lobbied Texas school officials on behalf of the in-school television network Channel One in 2002 -- when Channel One's parent company was paying Abramoff a $320,000 annual retainer. Texas law generally requires people to register as lobbyists if they receive more than $500 a quarter to directly communicate with a state official on public policy. Ralph Reed never registered as a Texas lobbyist despite evidence that he called at least one member of the State Board of Education in 2002 to influence a board resolution.

In 2002, the Texas State Board of Education considered passing a nonbinding resolution to urge schools to ban Channel One from their campuses. Liberal opponents of in-school, commercial television included Texans for Public Justice and Commercial Alert, an Oregon-based Naderite group that opposes commercial exploitation of children. Conservative opponents of Channel One included Alabama-based Obligation Inc., which mirrors Commercial Alert's agenda and the Texas Eagle Forum. All of these groups objected to public schools using teaching time to expose captive children to ads, especially those promoting junk food or violent films. To make this case, Birmingham-based Obligation Inc. showed the conservative-dominated board a sampling of Channel One's own ads.

Channel One responded by flying CEO Jim Ritts, a University of Texas alum, to Austin to help local company lobbyist Demetrius McDaniel of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. These Channel One representatives, neither of whom responded to requests for comment, had their own video that included an apparent endorsement of the company by First Lady Laura Bush. In the end, the board dropped the resolution against Channel One and passed a weak substitute that urged PTA types to educate themselves about marketing in schools.

There is evidence that Ralph Reed contributed to this Channel One lobbying coup behind the scenes. A brief Austin American-Statesman article in September 2002 reported that Channel One postponed a vote on the resolution thanks to "an impromptu lobbying effort by Channel One Communications -- including phone calls from Ralph Reed." Indeed, Channel One critic Gary Ruskin, of Commercial Alert, continues to blame Reed's lobbying for ensuring that "Texas school children are still forced to watch ads for junk food, violent entertainment and movies that portray smoking."

When the Channel One resolution came before the board, 10 of its 15 members had at least one thing in common with Ralph Reed: a Republican Party affiliation. One Republican board member, Dan Montgomery, R-Fredericksburg, told the Observer that he was present when then-board member Chase Untermeyer, R-Houston, took a call from Ralph Reed. "He said it was Ralph Reed calling on behalf of Channel One," and he was somewhat surprised, Montgomery recalls. Montgomery added that he does not think Reed's intervention influenced the board's vote on the resolution. Untermeyer is now the U.S. Ambassador to Qatar. Another board member, David Bradley of Beaumont, declined to say if Reed had contacted him, telling the Observer, "I cannot help you." Asked if this meant that Reed never contacted him, Bradley repeated, "Sir, I cannot help you."

Andrew Wheat is research director for the Austin-based Texans for Public Justice.

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