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In addition, there are a number of questions to be asked about a meeting that occurred on May 18, 1998, in Allbaugh's office. The meeting took place one month after investigators from May's agency had done a surprise inspection of two SCI funeral homes that were believed to be embalming bodies without proper licenses.

The surprise inspections infuriated Waltrip, a surly, burly multimillionaire with close ties to the Bush family. Five days after the surprise inspections, Waltrip wrote a nasty letter to the head of the Funeral Service Commission and sent a copy to Bush. In the letter, Waltrip said the agency's "'storm trooper' tactics have no place in responsible government," adding that the agency had engaged in an "abusive and pointless display of power."

Waltrip was able to make his own display of power and he did it in Allbaugh's office, just a few steps away from Bush's office in the Texas Capitol. During the May 18 meeting, May says she was interrogated by state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, who received $5,000 in campaign funds from SCI's PAC, more than any other member of the Texas Senate.

Whitmire, whose district includes the Heights neighborhood where Waltrip's first funeral home is located, demanded to know the details of her agency's investigation into SCI's operations. Whitmire did this even though Waltrip and an SCI attorney were sitting in the same room. According to May, Allbaugh did nothing to stop Whitmire or advise him that it was improper for him to ask May for facts about an ongoing investigation.

May says the meeting "was clearly designed to intimidate me and to obtain information about what we were doing. They were unhappy with the fact that I was doing this investigation."

The effect of SCI's power play is an agency left virtually powerless and unable to police the 123 funeral homes that SCI operates in Texas. "They've dismantled the agency so that there's no one competent enough" to enforce the law, says one former agency staffer.

While the legislators received lots of cash from SCI, the ties between the Bush family and the world's largest funeral company appear to be more binding. In March, former President George Bush appeared at a meeting of the International Cemetery and Funeral Association in Houston. The elder Bush charges up to $100,000 per appearance and he is known for being selective in accepting offers.

So why speak to a bunch of funeral-home and cemetery owners? According to sources in the funeral industry and articles in the Death Care Business Advisor, a trade newsletter, Bush's appearance at the confab was paid for by SCI, which had 1998 revenues of $2.8 billion. Funeral industry sources say Waltrip is a longtime friend of the former president and has supported him since Bush ran for Congress in the mid-1960s.

May's lawyers are eager to ask the Texas governor about his family's friendship with Waltrip. And they have a hearse-load of other questions, such as: What did Allbaugh tell Bush about Waltrip's problems with the state investigation? Did Bush authorize Allbaugh to hold the meeting in his office? Or did Allbaugh, as Bush's chief of staff, simply make his own decision to intervene on behalf of SCI? And perhaps most importantly, what did Waltrip and Bush really talk about when the funeral magnate visited Bush's office on April 15, 1998?

Even if Bush manages to skate away from this lawsuit, Allbaugh won't be so fortunate. One of SCI's own lawyers, Johnnie B. Rogers Sr., said, "There's no question" that Allbaugh was involved in SCI's efforts to get state officials to pressure the Funeral Service Commission to halt its investigation. So Allbaugh, the man who makes the trains run on time in the Bush campaign, will be an unwilling star witness when May's case goes to trial.
salon.com | July 21, 1999

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