GOP governors, donors hobnob at the Hall Faneuil meeting excludes public
Faneuil Hall, a national landmark for American democracy and one of the city's most popular destinations, was sealed off yesterday, to the disappointment of tourists and wanderers from the Freedom Trail. But the doors were flung open to the Republican Party's corporate donors, including representatives of Halliburton and
The closed-door meeting was part of a daylong event for this year's Republican Governors Association's New England Governors Forum, hosted by Romney, the association's national vice chairman. The price tag -- including a Red Sox game last night and a reception and luncheon -- ran as high as $50,000.
Closing off the Colonial-era hall so that wealthy donors could hobnob with the governors didn't sit well with a slew of tourists who had come to glimpse the famous meeting place. And campaign finance critics were also incensed that the place where Samuel Adams and other patriots planted the seeds of the American Revolution and abolitionists launched early battles against slavery was being used to raise special-interest political money.
Romney and other Republican leaders seemed uneasy, too. Members of the Republican Governors Association staff instructed some participants leaving the hall to remove their nametags -- some bearing the names of corporate giants -- to avoid being identified by a reporter.
''When they have policy forums, we like to participate," said Dave Wood of Exelon, which describes itself as one of the nation's largest electric utilities, with more than $14 billion in annual revenues. Energy policy was not among the items on the round-table agenda. But Wood said his interest in the forum stems from the fact that Exelon has assets in the region.
For several hours yesterday afternoon, tourists happened upon the scene at Faneuil Hall and seemed puzzled when they were told they could not enter the 250-year-old building. Inside, Romney and the three other governors -- Matt Blunt of Missouri, Jim Douglas of Vermont, and Donald L. Carcieri of Rhode Island -- held ''governors' roundtables" on healthcare, attracting high-tech business, and financial services.
Romney, whose campaign finance team had raised most of the $500,000 from the series of events that made up the association's New England Governors Forum, had said prior to the event that he didn't like the campaign finance ''system."
''It does give them better access to speak with governors," Romney said of the donors. ''That is the part of the process as it exists. I don't like the system the way we have it. . . . We are living within the laws."
Governor M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, who is championing legislation that aims to curtail special-interest money in campaigns in her state, made only a brief appearance at the meeting. After the late morning news conference, she headed back to Hartford, before the reception and luncheon with the major contributors on the 33d floor of 66 State St. -- and the gathering on the roof deck at Fenway Park.
''I will leave the conjecture to you," said her press secretary Dennis Schain. ''The governor understands the increasing public interest in how campaigns are financed and in campaign finance reform. It is an issue that is on the front burner in Connecticut."
Romney noted, as did Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause, who criticized the event, that the Democratic Governors Association raises the same sort of special-interest funds to finance gubernatorial campaigns.
As he entered Faneuil Hall, Ron Kaufman, a prominent Washington lobbyist and a Republican national committeeman from Massachusetts, insisted that the event was designed to allow for a free exchange of views on important policy initiatives, without the media present. Kaufman, who cochairs the Republican Governors Association finance committee, is senior managing principal at Dutko Worldwide, a lobbying firm. He compared the association to a club whose members get together to talk.
''Like any membership group, they get together and chit-chat," Kaufman said. ''I bet that in the last 20 years more good public policy and good ideas have come from this group than any group in America," he said, citing the association's push for welfare and education reform.
Kaufman, who was speaking with a Globe reporter just outside the building, took delight in the association's denying the newspaper's request to enter the hall. Barring the press, he said in jest, would provide an ''honest dialogue that it is not twisted by some left-wing pinko paper."
