Sponsoring the Presidential inauguration

Paying for the inauguration (scroll down) at Al's Morning Meeting summarizes and links to articles about the corporate interests behind the scenes of the festivities that will dominate the media on January 20.

Al's main sources today include The Usual Suspects: Inaugural donors and committee members include familiar faces by Courtney Mabeus and Steven Weiss in Capital Eye and Ticket Requests, Cash Inundate Volunteers by Maureen Fan in the Washington Post.

Fan reports:

The committee has said that it would spend $30 million to $40 million and that all the money would be raised from the private sector.

Big donors on the most recent list included Ford Motor Co.; Home Depot Inc.; Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.; Marriott International Inc.; First Data Corp.; Time Warner Inc.; UST Inc., the holding company for US Tobacco Co.; and the National Association of Homebuilders. Each contributed $250,000, which is the most the committee has said it would accept.

Individuals in the large donor category included Sheldon G. Adelson and Miriam Ochshorn Adelson, who each gave $250,000. Sheldon Adelson is chairman of Las Vegas Sands Inc. and raised at least $100,000 for Bush's reelection campaign.

J. Ronald Terwilliger, Sam and Marilyn Fox, Ned L. Siegel, Duane Acklie, Alexander F. Treadell, Matthew R. Simmons, Robert Frank Pence, Marc S. Goldman, Kenneth J. Kies and Michael W. Murphy each gave $100,000.

Sam Fox, Acklie and Siegel are "Rangers," Republican donors who raised at least $200,000 each for Bush's reelection; Kies raised at least $100,000.

Mabeus and Weiss:

Leading the inaugural committee are several people who themselves contributed money to Bush’s first inauguration four years ago.

Of the 14 individuals and couples who sit on the committee, at least seven contributed $100,000 or more to Bush’s 2001 inauguration. At least 10 committee members were Bush Pioneers in 2000, and 11 of them achieved Ranger status in 2004.

Several committee members are large campaign contributors themselves. As a whole, members of the inaugural committee have contributed more than $1.7 million to federal candidates and parties during the 2004 election cycle. All but $42,500 has gone to Democrats, and more than $97,000 went to the Bush campaign.

Business partners Mercer Reynolds and William DeWitt, who are serving as co-chairs of the inaugural committee, are among Bush’s most loyal supporters. They and their immediate families have contributed a combined $298,000 to Republicans this cycle, including $22,000 to the Bush campaign.

Reynolds and DeWitt, who operate a Cincinnati-based investment firm, were Pioneers in 2000 and Rangers in 2004. They served as co-chairs of Bush’s first inaugural committee, which raised $40 million. Bush rewarded Reynolds by nominating him as ambassador to Switzerland, a position he relinquished in March 2003 to serve as the national finance chairman of Bush’s reelection campaign. DeWitt served on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

California businessman Brad Freeman is also an inaugural committee co-chair. He and his immediate family have contributed more than $138,000 to Republicans in the current cycle, $6,000 to Bush. Like Reynolds and DeWitt, Freeman was an inaugural co-chair four years ago, a Pioneer in 2000 and a Ranger in 2004. Freeman was appointed to the President’s Council on White House Fellowships, and his brother, Russell, a 2000 Bush Pioneer, was appointed by Bush in 2001 to serve as ambassador to Belize.

Joe Canizaro, a finance co-chair for the inaugural committee, and his immediate family have given more money to Republicans ($285,000), and to the Bush campaign ($18,000), during the current cycle than anyone else on the inaugural committee. Canizaro, CEO of Louisiana-based Columbus Properties, was one of 22 business leaders whom Bush invited to lunch in 2001 to discuss tax cuts, according to Texans for Public Justice. He was also a 2000 Bush Pioneer and a Ranger for 2004.