Kennedy Center, Appointments
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For years, presidents have paid back big campaign contributors by appointing them to the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center for the Arts, a glamorous, high-profile position that allows them to mingle with famous performers, celebrities, and assorted glitterati. It’s “the most sought-after appointment in Washington other than a full-time job,” Charles Wilson, a former Democratic representative from Texas and onetime board member, once told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’re talking about cast parties when the Bolshoi [Ballet] opens at the Kennedy Center. Plus, it’s nice to have on your résumé.” All of the 13 trustees appointed by President Bill Clinton from December 1994 to December 1996 were Democratic donors. Along with their families and companies with which they were associated, the Clinton-appointed trustees gave $1.3 million to Democratic committees, more than half of it to support Clinton’s reelection. Among the Clinton-appointed trustees was cosmetics mogul Ronald O. Perelman, a Clinton donor who also gave $25,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1996. (Perelman’s company, Revlon, hired Clinton’s former mistress Monica Lewinsky in 1998 at the behest of Revlon director and Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan, Jr., but then rescinded the job offer when it became the subject of news reports.) In addition, 70 of the 85 Clinton appointees to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts, a Kennedy Center fundraising group, were Democratic contributors who collectively gave more than $600,000 to help reelect the man who’d given them the position. President George W. Bush has also the Kennedy Center board as a reward for campaign-finance largess. His appointments include Florida real estate developer Edward W. Easton, a big Bush donor who in April 2007 hosted a $25,000-a-plate luncheon to benefit the Republican National Committee, featuring the president as the main attraction. (“I’m glad to be able to help,” Easton told the Miami Herald.)
SOURCES: Center for Responsive Politics; Leah Nathans Spiro, “All the Billionaire’s Men,” Business Week, February 16, 1998; Michael Powell, “Perelman Power,” The Washington Post, February 6, 1998; Julia Malone and Andrew Mollison, “The Kennedy Center: Inside Circle Is Filled With Clinton Campaign Contributors,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 11, 1997; Beth Reinhard, “Dine with Bush — $25,000 a Plate,” Miami Herald, April 27, 2007.
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