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Bob J. Perry

President, Perry Homes
Houston, Texas

Perry, whose deep pockets helped underwrite the assault on Democrat John Kerry’s military record during the 2004 presidential election, may have done more than anyone else to ensure George W. Bush’s narrow victory that year. Since then, Perry’s money has fueled the continued rise of “527” organizations, the oft-stealthy groups that suddenly materialize during election campaigns, usually to underwrite attack ads against candidates.

Perry is the founder and sole owner of Perry Homes, one of the nation’s top 50 homebuilding companies; his net worth has been estimated to be as much as $650 million. He’s better known, though, as one of the nation’s biggest political contributors. According to a 2007 profile in Texas Monthly, the notoriously publicity-shy construction mogul started out in the 1970s supporting Democrats but switched parties in the early 1980s at the cajoling of fellow Houstonian and then-White House Chief of Staff James Baker. In the 1990s, he became a major supporter of future President George W. Bush giving $46,000 to Bush’s two campaigns for governor, according to Texans for Public Justice.

Perry’s biggest national political impact has been as a backer of 527 groups. In 2004, his $4.45 million contribution to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made him the biggest underwriter of the 527 organization that attacked John Kerry’s service in Vietnam by contending, among other things, that Kerry did not actually deserve his Bronze Star. (The group’s ads were denounced by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a fellow Vietnam veteran, as “dishonest and dishonorable,” and soon the allegations were themselves contradicted by military records and by witnesses to the events.) By that time, however, Kerry’s credibility had been so seriously damaged that 62 percent of Americans believed he had not been entirely truthful about his Vietnam record.)

In 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Perry was the top individual donor to 527 groups, with contributions of more than $9.7 million. That included $3 million to the disingenuously named Americans for Honesty on Issues, which financed television spots falsely claiming that Democrat Ed Perlmutter, who was running for a House seat in Colorado, had sponsored legislation to give taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal immigrants. Perry also was the leading donor to the Free Enterprise Fund Committee, which ran an ad in Montana that facetiously likened Democrats to the gay cowboys in the film Brokeback Mountain.

In 2007, Perry signed on as a member of the “Texas Leadership Team” that raises money for the presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney. “While Bob Perry will not be able to write Romney any more than a $2,300 check,” Chris Cillizza of Washingtonpost.com observed, “his willingness to fund third-party groups could play a key role as the campaign heats up.”

Reportedly, Perry’s major motivation for spending millions of dollars to support GOP candidates is his fervent desire to limit tort litigation. In light of his apparent aversion to the present civil court system, it is ironic that he is seeking to void an $800,000 arbitration award won by a Texas couple against his company because of alleged structural problems with their home. His lawyers argue that the case belongs in the Texas courts instead.