Reed Reportedly Received Millions to Lobby In Texas-But He Never Registere

Prosecutors Urged to Investigate Ralph Reed's Covert Lobbying
Reed Reportedly Received Millions to Lobby In Texas-But He Never Registered With State as Required

AUSTIN, Texas - December 1 - Texans for Public Justice, Common Cause Texas and Public Citizen today petitioned Travis County Attorney David Escamilla to investigate the Texas lobby activities of Ralph Reed.

According to state records, Reed did not register as a Texas lobbyist in 2001 or 2002, when he reportedly received $4.2 million to lobby Texas state officials to shut down two Indian casinos in Texas. Embattled gambling lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon-working for a tribe that operated a competing casino in Louisiana-reportedly paid Reed to pressure Texas officials to close the Texas casinos. The watchdog groups contend that available evidence, including Reed's own electronic correspondence, indicates that Reed was engaged in lobbying activities that would have required him to register as a Texas lobbyist.

With Abramoff's aid, Reed helped convert the remains of televangelist Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign into the fundamentalist Christian Coalition. Nine years later, Reed started his own lobby firm in Georgia called Century Strategies. A U.S. Senate probe into Abramoff's Indian gambling activities has documented that Abramoff hired Reed in 2001 to:


Kill a 2001 Texas bill (HB 514) that sought to keep the El Paso-based Tigua tribe's Speaking Rock Casino open; and
Ensure that then-Attorney General John Cornyn shut down Speaking Rock (in part by generating support for such a policy).
The ultimate source of Reed's multimillion-dollar fees for this lobby work appears to be a casino operated by the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, which wanted to eliminate competition from Speaking Rock and a small Alabama Coushatta casino in East Texas. The Louisiana tribe hired Abramoff and Scanlon in April 2001, ultimately paying them $32 million.