Bush, who is not a defendant in the lawsuit, submitted a one-page affidavit to the court in which he says he has “had no conversations with Texas Funeral Services [sic] Commission officials, agents or representatives concerning the investigation of SCI by the Texas Funeral Services Commission or any dispute arising from it. I have had no conversations with SCI officials, agents or representatives concerning the investigation or any dispute arising from it.”

It’s still unclear if Bush, who has received $35,000 in campaign contributions since 1996 from SCI’s political action committee, will be deposed. A hearing on the matter has been set for August 30 in the Travis County Courthouse in Austin. An elected state district court judge will decide if the facts in the case merit Bush’s testimony. All but one of the judges who could be assigned the case are Democrats.

If the judge decides that Bush must testify, the case will almost certainly be appealed directly to the Texas Supreme Court, where Bush has a decided advantage. All nine justices on the Texas high court are Republicans and four of them were appointed to the bench by Bush. A fifth justice was appointed by Bush to a lower court and recently won election to the Texas Supreme Court. Political observers in Austin are already speculating that if the case goes before the justices, they could simply sit on the case for a year or more, thereby preventing the matter from becoming an issue in Bush’s bid for the presidency.

Bush’s allies are desperately trying to avoid a high-profile legal proceeding for the governor in the middle of the budding campaign season. In his motion to keep Bush off the stand, the attorney general argues that a plaintiff “does not gain the right to depose high level corporate or state officials simply by virtue of naming a corporation or state agency as a defendant in a lawsuit.” The motion also argues that the deposition is being “sought purely for purposes of harassment.”

The argument has a familiar ring to it. Bush’s efforts to avoid the deposition are similar to those taken by President Clinton in the Paula Jones case. In the Jones case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that even sitting presidents are not immune from subpoenas if they have information that is relevant to a case, thus forcing the testimony for which Clinton was impeached on charges of perjury. The clear difference between the two cases is that Bush is not a defendant in the whistleblower case in Texas.

Despite Bush’s claims to the contrary, the facts in the lawsuit filed by former Texas Funeral Service Commission Executive Director Eliza May suggest that the governor may, indeed, have information that is relevant.

May’s lawsuit, filed March 23, says that Bush, state officials and SCI officials “appear to have been involved as co-conspirators” in an effort to block the agency’s investigation into SCI’s embalming practices. It also alleges May was fired in February because she was reporting on violations of state law. Last year, under May’s direction, the agency began investigating two of SCI’s Dallas-area funeral homes, which were allegedly operating without proper licenses. The investigation ultimately led the agency to recommend a fine of $445,000 be levied against SCI, which had revenues last year of $2.8 billion. So far, the company hasn’t been required to pay a dime and the matter is still pending.

The state investigation was stopped in its tracks after May was required to attend a meeting in the office of Joe Allbaugh, Bush’s chief of staff. (Allbaugh currently serves as Bush’s campaign manager.) During the May 1998 meeting in Allbaugh’s office in the Texas Capitol, May was asked numerous questions about her agency’s ongoing investigation, even though SCI’s CEO, Robert Waltrip, was sitting in the same room. After the meeting in Allbaugh’s office — which May says was “clearly designed to intimidate me” — her agency’s investigation of SCI was halted.

The Funeral Service Commission completed no more inspections of SCI’s facilities and the agency’s general counsel quit. In February 1999, May was fired. A few months later, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a bill to reorganize the agency and strip it of its general counsel position. The legislation, written by a lobbyist hired by SCI, also forced out the agency’s current chairman, Dick McNeil, a Fort Worth funeral director who had approved the investigation into SCI’s operations.

In addition to Allbaugh’s involvement, documents issued by SCI in May’s lawsuit also appear to show that Bush knows more than he’s admitting. On June 11, Waltrip’s lawyers issued documents that say Waltrip talked with Bush on April 15, 1998, in the governor’s office about SCI’s problems with the state investigators.

Five days later, the lawyers changed their story. In a highly unusual “supplemental” response to the interrogatories, the lawyers said Waltrip did not talk to Bush about his problems with state investigators. The supplemental document says that while Waltrip was in Bush’s office waiting to talk with Allbaugh, the governor “passed by on the way to a press conference or other appointment,” and although Bush “exchanged pleasantries” with Waltrip, their discussion was “not substantive; they did not discuss the content” of a letter Waltrip wrote complaining about the investigation.

May’s attorneys are also likely to argue that the personal relationship between the Bush family and Waltrip justifies questioning the governor. Former president George H.W. Bush has known Waltrip for decades and has flown on SCI’s airplanes. In March, the elder Bush appeared at a meeting of the International Cemetery and Funeral Association in Houston. The former president charges up to $100,000 per appearance and is known for being selective in accepting offers. 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.

Former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox is an expert on subpoenas issued to public officials. During his eight years in office, Mattox, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, fought numerous attempts to depose state officials. But he says that Bush will likely lose his fight on this subpoena. Bush, says Mattox, is “probably close enough to this thing to justify a deposition.” And he adds that Waltrip’s conflicting interrogatories combined with the Bushes’ friendship with Waltrip “probably justify an inquiry as to whether Waltrip talked to the governor.”

So now it appears that Bush, as well as Allbaugh and Bush’s general counsel, Margaret Wilson, will all be deposed in a growing whistleblower and influence-buying scandal that just won’t go away, a persistent hangnail in Bush’s well-manicured run for the presidency.

After a May 1998 meeting in Bush’s office between SCI CEO Robert Waltrip and Allbaugh — and possibly Bush — the Funeral Service Commission completed no more inspections of SCI’s facilities, and the agency’s general counsel quit. In February 1999, commission Executive Director Eliza May was fired. A few months later, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a bill to reorganize the agency and strip it of its general counsel position. (The bill’s sponsor received more campaign funds from SCI than anyone in the Texas House.) The Legislature also forced out the agency’s current chairman, Dick McNeil, a Fort Worth funeral director who had approved the investigation into SCI’s operations.

May has sued the state over her firing; it is in that lawsuit that Bush received his subpoena. So far, the issues in May’s suit have been ignored by the mainstream media. But as soon as May’s lawyers get permission to depose Bush, and they probably will, the issue of influence buying will be put clearly in focus. And what started out as a simple investigation into a few funeral homes in Dallas last year could become a major issue in Bush’s push for the White House.

Bush’s lawyers will file a motion to quash the subpoena in an effort to avoid an unwanted distraction for the Texas governor during his drive for the presidency. “Gov. Bush was not involved in this case and has no personal knowledge of the facts in this case,” says his spokeswoman, Linda Edwards.

But on July 9, attorneys representing May subpoenaed Bush. The deposition has been scheduled for Aug. 26, but it’s unclear if Bush will actually be deposed on that date.

May’s lawsuit, filed March 23, alleges that state officials and SCI’s Waltrip worked to thwart an investigation by the Funeral Service Commission into SCI’s embalming practices. It also alleges May was fired in February because she reported violations of the law. Last year, under May’s direction, the agency began investigating two of SCI’s Dallas-area funeral homes, which were allegedly operating without proper licenses. The investigation ultimately led the agency to recommend a fine of $445,000 be levied against SCI, the world’s largest funeral company. So far, the company hasn’t been required to pay a dime and the matter is still pending.

Adding intrigue to the lawsuit are a conflicting set of documents recently issued by SCI’s lawyers. On June 11, Waltrip’s lawyers issued documents that say Waltrip talked with Bush on April 15, 1998, in the governor’s office about SCI’s problems with the state investigators. Five days later, Waltrip’s lawyers changed their story.

In a highly unusual “supplemental” response to the interrogatories, the lawyers said Waltrip did not talk to Bush about his problems with state investigators. The supplemental document says that while Waltrip was in Bush’s office waiting to talk with Allbaugh, the governor “passed by on the way to a press conference or other appointment,” and although Bush “exchanged pleasantries” with Waltrip, their discussion was “not substantive; they did not discuss the content” of a letter Waltrip wrote complaining about the investigation.

Perhaps that’s true. But why, then, did SCI’s in-house lawyer, Daniel Reat, swear that Waltrip talked to Bush? In a sworn, notarized court statement that accompanied the June 11 interrogatory, Reat said that Waltrip’s answers “are either within his personal knowledge or based on information obtained from other persons, and are true and correct.”

May’s lawyers want to question Bush about the discrepancy in Waltrip’s statements. They also want to question Bush about the $35,000 in campaign contributions he has received from SCI’s political action committee since 1996.

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.

Donald Evans — The Money

Of the four, Evans is the closest to Bush on a personal level. A millionaire oil man, Evans, 52, may be
Bush’s closest friend. The two met in Midland during Bush’s less-than-stellar stint in the oil business. The
longtime chairman and CEO of Tom Brown Inc., a Midland oil and gas company, Evans’ stake in the
company is worth more than $10 million, and his contacts with other wealthy people and potential campaign
contributors make him a key player in Bush’s camp.

Evans’ golden Rolodex explains why Bush tapped him to head the fund-raising operation during
both of Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns. As his reward, Bush appointed Evans to the board of regents at the
University of Texas, a prestigious position in which Evans oversees one of the largest public university
systems in America. Recently, Evans moved to Austin to serve as Bush’s national finance chairman. He
helped organize the Pioneers, a group of 150 Bush backers who have pledged to raise $100,000. Evans
recently described the Pioneer plan as “a pyramid of sorts. One person calls 10, 20 or 50 people and then
asks those people to call 10, 20 or 50 people.” All of those people write $1,000 checks, the maximum
individual contribution for presidential candidates.

The Bush campaign hopes to raise more than $50 million so it can avoid federal spending limits. It already
has an estimated $15 million. Evans has said that the goal in political fund-raising is to “raise money early
and spend it late.” So far, that plan is working and much of the credit belongs to Evans.

Karen Hughes — The Mouth

If Bush prevails next November, Hughes may be the next White House press secretary. A summa cum laude graduate of Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, Hughes is what one source inside the campaign calls Bush’s “touchstone. He has a
great deal of trust in her. He is more comfortable when she’s around.” A fast-talking former reporter at
KXAS-TV in Fort Worth, Hughes, 43, can sometimes be seen mouthing the words to Bush’s speeches as he
delivers them. Indeed, the two share what may be the closest thing to the Vulcan mind-meld. In February,
Hughes told a reporter that she knows Bush so well that whenever he is asked a question, “the vast
majority of the time, I can predict what his reaction is going to be.”

Hughes, the Bush campaign’s communications director, has spent a lot of time coaching her candidate on
interacting with the press. It shows. Bush’s ability to remember reporters and call them by their first
names is uncanny. He appears to have a prepared answer for every question and he always acts relaxed
with reporters.

Hughes played a key role in choreographing Bush’s March 7 coming-out party at which the candidate
presented his star-studded exploratory committee. It was more of a coronation than a campaign event.
There were Texas flags, American flags, blue curtains, theatrical lights. It looked like it was produced at
the State Department, not some cavernous ballroom at the Austin Convention Center. Asked afterward
about the event, Hughes said she was in charge of what she called “the stage design, the set.” Obviously,
Hughes knows how to make sure her candidate is presented in the best possible light. She will be Bush’s
liaison to the insatiable national media monster if and when its honeymoon with Bush comes to an end.

Joe Allbaugh — The Muscle

While Hughes represents the finesse part of Bush’s strategy, Allbaugh represents the muscle. At 6-foot-4
and 270 pounds, Allbaugh, who sports a crew cut and is usually wearing cowboy boots, looks more like a
Marine drill instructor than a political operative. In fact, one source in the Bush campaign calls him
“Sgt. Rock.” Though Allbaugh’s business cards say he’s Bush’s campaign manager, his real job is chief
enforcer. With his intimidating size and sandpaper demeanor, Allbaugh plays the bad cop to perfection.

Allbaugh managed Bush’s 1994 gubernatorial campaign before being named Bush’s chief of staff. Before
coming to Texas, he was the deputy secretary of transportation in Oklahoma. A veteran of campaigns in 39
states, Allbaugh, 46, is a graduate of Oklahoma State University.

While he’s a key player in Bush’s campaign, Allbaugh does carry some baggage. A lawsuit filed against the
state in March by a former state employee alleges that Allbaugh tried to intimidate her into halting an
ongoing investigation into several funeral homes. According to the suit, Allbaugh called the woman, Eliza
May, into his office, where he and others demanded that she reveal details of her investigation while the
owner of the funeral company sat in the same office. Although Allbaugh is not a defendant in the suit, he will
be a key witness. His first deposition in the suit will be taken over the next few weeks. Depending on what
emerges, the suit could be embarrassing for Allbaugh and Bush, who will also be deposed in the suit.

Karl Rove — The Mind

Evans, Hughes and Allbaugh are vital components of the Bush operation, but Rove, Bush’s chief strategist,
is without a doubt the campaign’s most important asset. Rove’s ties with the Bush family go back to 1973,
when he was chairman of the college Republicans, and the chairman of the state GOP was an oil man from
Texas named George Herbert Walker Bush. Four years later, Rove was the first person the elder Bush hired
when he decided to run for president. Rove has another claim to fame: He introduced the late Lee Atwater to
former President Bush. Atwater went on to become chairman of the Republican National Committee and one
of Bush’s closest political advisors.

Rove has been guiding the younger Bush’s political trajectory since the candidate’s first shaky press
conferences in November 1993, when he announced he was running against the popular incumbent,
Democratic Gov. Ann Richards.

A 48-year-old political junkie who has attended nearly half a dozen colleges but never got a degree, Rove
now teaches graduate students at the University of Texas. Given his credentials, Rove has plenty to teach.
Nine years ago, Texas was dominated by Democrats. Today, it’s ruled by Republicans. Every statewide
elected office is held by a Republican and many of those officeholders owe their success to
Rove. During the November election, he advised a half-dozen candidates. All of them won.

Rove has a long history in Texas politics. He worked for Bill Clements, the Republican who broke the
Democrats’ century-long stranglehold on the governor’s office in 1978. Four years later, Rove began
working for Phil Gramm, who was in the U.S. House of Representatives and a Democrat; two years
later he helped get Gramm elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. During the 1984 election, Rove did
direct-mail work for the Reagan-Bush campaign. Two years later, he helped Clements win a second stint in
the governor’s office. In 1988, Rove advised Tom Phillips, who became the first Republican ever elected to
the Texas Supreme Court (within a decade, the GOP would take all nine seats). Mark McKinnon, a consultant
who used to work for Democrats and now directs Bush’s media effort, calls Rove the “Bobby Fischer of
politics. He not only sees the board, he sees about 20 moves ahead.”

Bush values Rove’s contributions. In a January interview, Bush called Rove “a close friend of mine” and
“confidant” who has “good judgment.” But that good judgment does not come cheap. The first financial
disclosure form released by Bush’s presidential exploratory committee shows that the committee paid
Rove’s consulting firm $220,228. That’s nearly a quarter of all the money the committee spent from
January to the end of March. Rove has since sold his consulting firm to devote all his energy to Bush’s
campaign.

But Rove doesn’t mind. Last year, he told a Florida reporter how happy he is to be working for Bush, calling
him “the kind of candidate and officeholder political hacks like me wait for a lifetime to be associated with.”
Rove may consider himself a hack, but if Bush wins, Rove will become a star. And Evans, Allbaugh and
Hughes will be standing right next to him, basking in the limelight.

Even in Texas, a state that has executed 13 people this year alone, Holmes is a
standout. If Holmes were his own state, he would rank third behind Texas and
Virginia in the number of murderers executed. The longtime Harris County
district attorney has officially sent more people to their deaths than any other person in
America, earning him the title of toughest prosecutor in the land.

Nearly one-third of the 448 men, as well as three of the eight women, now on Texas’ death
row were convicted in Harris County. Every decision to seek the death penalty
must be personally approved by Holmes, who oversees a staff of more than 200
prosecutors.

It was Holmes, a 57-year-old Republican, who chose to seek death for
Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted murderer who was executed last year. Tucker, the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War, earned
international attention, vowing in her appeal that she had become a born-again
Christian and apologizing for her crime. Her case even brought a personal appeal
for clemency from Pope John Paul II, a plea that href="/news/feature/1999/05/06/bush/index.html">Gov. George W. Bush declined.
Holmes says the governor made the right decision.

“I’ll show them what she did. What she did was awful,” says Holmes indignantly.
“This guy who she killed was pinned to the mattress. He couldn’t be moved. She
put a pickax right through that man.”

Holmes gets riled when he starts talking about the death penalty. Of course he
knows the numbers. Sure, he knows that he has sent more people to their deaths
than several other states combined. That’s part of his job. And when it comes to
the actual execution, there are some cases where Holmes wishes that “I could have
done it myself.”

For Holmes, the law is sacrosanct, and he goes out of his way to uphold it.
“There’s nothing worse than having a law and not enforcing it,” he says. “That
promotes disrespect for the law.” In 1996, Holmes saw a man pilfering lumber from
a construction site near his home. While his wife called 911, Holmes grabbed his
shotgun and ordered the man to surrender. When told it seemed a rather remarkable
thing to do, Holmes replied, “Wouldn’t you do the same thing if somebody is
stealing your neighbor’s lumber? Are you going to sit there with your finger up
your ass and watch him steal it?”

Holmes has also proven that for him, respect
for the law runs deeper than family ties. He once turned in his own uncle to the
Internal Revenue Service.

Known for his handlebar mustache, Holmes talks, looks and acts like
someone straight out of central casting. Give him chaps, spurs, a six-shooter (or
a shotgun) and a cowboy hat and he’d be an obvious choice to play Wyatt Earp.
Holmes’ penchant for seeking the death penalty certainly puts him in the same
league as other old West lawmen like Isaac Parker, the legendary hanging judge
from Fort Smith who once strung up three men in a single afternoon.

Harris County voters seem to like Holmes’ tough stance. He has been reelected four times since taking office in 1979. He ran unopposed in 1996. In 1992, he got more than 60
percent of the vote.

But Holmes’ penchant for seeking the death penalty is out of step with the rest
of the United States and even with his fellow prosecutors in Texas. Alan Levy, an
assistant district attorney in Fort Worth, calls Holmes “very, very aggressive.
Obviously, the people of Harris County agree with him, but it’s not the position
that we have. We think the death penalty ought to be reserved for cases where
there is no other alternative.”

Clearly, there are alternatives to the death penalty. But Holmes and his
prosecutors prefer to seek death, and he says his tough stance has contributed to
the fact that the murder rate in Houston is lower than comparable cities in the
state.

According to the latest Federal Bureau of Investigation crime statistics,
the murder rate in Dallas County — Texas’ second largest county — is slightly
higher than that in Harris County. Yet, according to figures published
late last year, Dallas County has 37 inmates on death row while Harris County has 137. In fact, the state’s death row has become so crowded with convicts from
Harris County that the state recently announced an expansion of its death row
facilities.

Dick DeGuerin, a Houston criminal defense attorney, believes Holmes’
fervent pursuit of the death penalty is misguided. DeGuerin, who gained fame for
defending David Koresh during the siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco,
says death “ought to be reserved for the most brutal and vicious cases. But I’ve
seen that in every case where there’s a possibility that the death penalty can be
sought, it is sought.”

Despite his differences with Holmes, DeGuerin, who is currently defending a
Houston man facing the death penalty, cannot dispute Holmes’ popularity. “He’ll
be reelected until he’s in his dotage. He’s very, very popular,” he said.

Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a
Washington group that opposes the death penalty, charges that Holmes
uses the death penalty for political purposes. “He uses the death penalty as part
of his platform,” says Dieter. “And it has worked in the sense of his being
reelected each term.”

Holmes claims to care little about his critics, and thinks much of the criticism
that comes his way should be directed at people who make the laws. “It’s your
business if you criticize the death penalty. But I think you are out of line if
you are being critical of me.” Instead, Holmes says death penalty opponents
should focus their fire on legislators. “I have never stumped for or against the
death penalty,” he explains. “That’s a legislative issue. It’s a personal issue
that’s wrapped up in morality and religion. I’ve looked at all the issues that
are important to me. And I’ve resolved it in my heart and mind. I’ve resolved
that I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.”