In the state where everything is supposedly bigger, the campaign for Texas governor will see large sums of money infused into the increasingly tight race between Gov. Rick Perry (R) and challenger Bill White (D). The last mandatory reporting period was at the end of February, shortly before the state’s primary, and fundraising numbers on each side had already begun to pile up. Perry had already spent $8.8 million, with $2.5 million cash on hand, while White spent $2.7 million with $5.5 million left in the war chest.

With the state Democratic convention held this past weekend, the general election season is officially in full swing, meaning the search for campaign donations will intensify. For his part, Gov. Perry has one key group he can reliably turn to for support: government officials. Throughout his decade in office, Rick Perry has used his power of appointment to stock the governing bodies for state universities with some of his highest contributors.

The position of Texas governor is one of the weakest state executives in the U.S. There are few responsibilities legally vested in the office, with most of the position’s power supplied through the bully pulpit. One of the few direct powers in the governor’s repertoire is the ability to appoint about 2,500 individuals to over 350 boards, agencies and commissions. Most positions require Senate confirmation of the governor’s nominee, but that process is usually a mere formality, with few contentious hearings.

Appointments to the Boards of Regents for public universities in Texas are among the most coveted positions doled out by the governor. “It’s definitely a prestige appointment,” says James Hensen, Director of the Texas Politics Project and lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of Texas-Austin. The regents have vast sway over the public universities: Beyond their recent vote against removing some of their top tier universities from the Big 12 conference, the regents oversee a wide variety of the university system’s policies, ranging from selecting chancellors and presidents to setting tuition and managing investment strategy.

The extent of Perry’s influence is especially pronounced due to his long tenure as Texas governor. At two and a half terms thus far, Perry is the state’s longest serving governor. The regents serve six-year terms, so at this point, every board member is a Perry nominee. “The longer you’re in the office the more powerful you become because you end up seeding the state agencies,” says Henson.

Whether the sitting governor was a Democrat or a Republican, the Boards of Regents slots have a long history of being awarded to political supporters. When George W. Bush was governor in the ’90s, money and appointments were often intertwined. According to a 2000 article in Harper’s (behind a paywall):

Named as a regent by Bush was perhaps his closest friend from Midland, Texas — oil company executive Donald L. Evans. A comparatively small but faithful donor to Republican candidates himself, Evans has raised money for all of George W.’s political campaigns, beginning with the fledgling oilman’s unsuccessful congressional race in 1978.

In fact, all of Bush’s regent appointees were contributors to his own campaign and to the Republican Party.

Perry’s new level of contributors

Using the Boards of Regents as a spoils system for campaign supporters may not be new to Perry, but as the longest-serving governor in state history, Perry’s appointments appear to have taken on a new level of cronyism. “The broad tendency seems a little bit more pronounced right now, but that might just be the length of time he’s been in office” Hensen says. “It’s been such a difference in extent that it’s become a difference in kind.”

According to a study released in April by Texans for Public Justice, Perry’s regent appointees have contributed over $6 million to his campaigns since 2000, with 63 percent of regents as donors. This trend is even more pronounced for the four major boards: University Texas System, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University and University of Houston.

For the University of Texas System Board of Regents (a collection of nine universities with over 200,000 enrolled students) 81% of Perry’s regents have donated to his campaigns since 2000, with an average contribution of $99,301 for each regent. At A&M, the average amount donated was $97,145 and 86 percent of appointees as contributors.

“They’re the most obvious donors who get awarded with appointments,” says Craig McDonald Director of Texans for Public Justice. “I would be surprised if the regents weren’t the largest group of donors to the governor.”

Texas has no limits on the amount of money individuals can contribute to state campaigns, and many of these donations come in large lump sums. James Dannenbaum has been a major contributor to Texans for Rick Perry throughout the last decade and was appointed to the University of Texas System Board of Regents in November of 2007. He hadn’t donated yet this year before the last disclosure period, but in every preceding year dating back to 2001, Dannenbaum has written at least one $25,000 check to Perry.

With such large amounts of money changing hands, it is hard not to see a form of quid pro quo in some of Perry’s appointments.

Take G. Brint Ryan, CEO and founder of a tax services firm located in Dallas, and current regent for the University of North Texas. Ryan had been a major supporter of Carole Keeton Strayhorn during the earlier part of the last decade. Strayhorn is the former Republican Comptroller of Public Accounts in Texas and was one of Perry’s harshest Republican critics. She left the party to run as an independent in the 2006 governor’s race, in which she placed third. Between late 2002 and 2006, Ryan donated enormous sums to Strayhorn, totaling over $600,000 during the period. In the month and a half preceding the 2006 election alone, Ryan wrote Strayhorn’s campaign two checks totaling $250,000.

After supporting the anti-Perry candidate in 2006, Ryan apparently had a change of heart in December 2008 when he wrote his first check to the governor for the sum of $100,000. That check was followed by another $100,000 check written to Texans for Rick Perry on June 30, 2009. On August 26, Perry announced Ryan’s nomination for the University of North Texas Board of Regents. Ryan did not return phone calls for comment.

Ryan contributed another $100,000 to Perry in February, right before Perry’s contentious primary against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. That follows the general trend of regents giving heavily both before and after their appointment. Those who don’t keep the money flowing to Perry’s campaign haven’t stayed in the governor’s good graces.

Perry’s influence continues after the nomination process

Mark Griffin and Windy Sitton were both Perry appointees to the Texas Tech Board of Regents. Both followed the trend of Perry contributors, but their donations — $3,500 and $2,000, respectively — were well below the Texas Tech average of $72,311. Still, they showed their support for the governor which was enough to get appointed. They ran into trouble, though, when their allegiances switched to supporting Hutchison in the gubernatorial primary. When their support for the governor’s opponent became public knowledge, each was asked to resign their spot on the board, The Austin Chronicle reported last fall.

One of the former regents, Windy Sitton, said that Scott Dueser, then chairman of the board, told her last year that the governor’s office had said for Sitton “to cease and desist supporting Kay Bailey immediately or resign from the board.” She said that she did neither. Perry replaced her this year after her term expired.

Mark Griffin, a Lubbock businessman whom Perry appointed to the Board of Regents in 2005, said he got the resignation call from former Perry chief of staff Brian Newby after praising Hutchison at an August campaign rally. She is challenging Perry in the March Republican gubernatorial primary. Griffin said he resigned shortly after Newby told him that the governor “expects loyalty out of his appointees and if you can’t be loyal, it’s probably not best to be on the team.”

Even regents who once donated large sums to Perry were not safe. Robert Rowling contributed over $200,000 to Perry’s campaigns before supporting Hutchison in the primary. Rowling resigned his position on the Texas System Board in February 2009 due to pressure from Perry and state senators concerning bonuses paid to university investment employees, but those concerns were only raised just after Rowling joined Hutchison’s team.

Though the governor’s role in public universities is confined to only nominating regents when a position is vacated, Perry has leveraged his power over his appointees. In 2008, Perry pressed his regents to vote for his preferred choice to fill the Chancellor of the Unversity of Texas position.

The three former regents — Perry appointees Robert Rowling, John Barnhill Jr. and H. Scott Caven Jr. — said Perry urged them to hire John Montford, a former state senator and Texas Tech University System chancellor who is a telecommunications lobbyist. While others have said Perry favored Montford for the job, the regents had remained silent about his involvement until Tuesday.

The governor’s lobbying on behalf of Montford is the latest illustration of how involved he has become in the governance of public institutions of higher education. On paper, at least, Perry’s role in running the campuses starts and ends with the appointment of regents to staggered six-year terms.

But he has also quietly signaled his preferences for presiding officers of the boards of regents, particularly at the flagships. For instance, it’s no coincidence that a longtime Perry ally, James Huffines, is leading the UT System board.

The board did not approve Perry’s candidate, selecting another person to the chancellor’s office.

(Photos: Flickr Creative Commons/sj_sanders and eschipul)