Corporate Upper Class
Their website address says it all: www.Houston.org.
It is home to the Greater Houston Partnership, an organization that many believe is responsible for charting and manipulating the city’s course from behind the scenes.
The truth is, however, that they work right out in the open, a sort of public secret in which the city’s most powerful corporations and individuals mold Houston’s destiny.
The Greater Houston Partnership was born in 1989 as the result of a merger between the Houston Chamber of Commerce and the Houston Business League. Like Houston itself, the partnership is a vast organization that traces its roots back to the earliest days of the city when Texas was an independent republic prior to adopting statehood in 1845.
The partnership has seven branches and while not officially affiliated with local government, the partnership will often work with city officials. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, the Greater Houston Partnership helped relocate New Orleans' businesses whose offices had been destroyed or damaged by the storm so that employees would not lose their jobs and business could continue.
Partnership member Halliburton’s KBR division has also been instrumental in removing debris and laying the groundwork for reconstructing U.S. Government facilities in the affected Gulf Coast region. Halliburton got the job as part of its CONCAP contract, reportedly worth $500 million. That contract was awarded in 2001, when Douglas Foshee was executive vice president and COO for the company and renewed in 2004.
Foshee went on to become COO and CEO of Torch Energy Advisors Inc, and President and CEO of El Paso Corporation, that owns the largest natural gas pipeline system in the United States. Both of these companies are also members of the Greater Houston Partnership.
The GHP membership includes the most powerful and wealthy individuals in Houston. Representatives from Houston’s energy industry include Shell Oil, Chevron Corporation, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, ExxonMobil and Halliburton.
Banking has an equally strong presence with members representing Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Compass Bank, Sterling Bank, and Hibernia National. Corporate law and investment firms are also prominent in the organization, including AIM Investments, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Bracewell & Giuliani L.L.P., Locke Liddell and Sapp, L.L.P; and Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
President George W. Bush’s latest appointee to the United States Supreme Court, Harriet Miers served as a co-managing partner of Locke Liddell & Sapp L.L.P.
Real estate and home development groups such as the Staubach Company, the Camden Property Trust and Weekley Homes are all involved with the Greater Houston Partnership and wield a great deal of power locally. Richard Weekley, whose brother of David Weekly is a powerful local home developer, was rated one of the 25 most powerful Texans in the February 2005 issue of Texas Monthly.
The local mainstream media is also involved in the Partnership. Houston Chronicle publisher and president Jack Sweeny is a member, as is KHOU-TV, which is owned by BELO Corporation. BELO also owns the Dallas Morning News.
Houston’s academic community has members in the partnership as well. University Of Houston Chancellor Jay Gogue, Rice University President David Leebron, Houston Community College System Chairman Bruce Leslie and Texas Southern University President Priscilla Slade are all members.
The Greater Houston Partnership exists for the primary purpose of ensuring what Sociologist Joe Feagin calls a “business friendly environment”. They do this by collaborating on various political projects that benefit their business interests and shape the future of the city, such as the Texans For Lawsuit Reform Political Action Committee.
During the 2000 election cycle, five Greater Houston Partnership members gave a little under $340,000 to the PAC. The committee is trying to stop what it calls lawsuit abuse. So-called “tort reform” has made it much more difficult for consumers with legitimate claims to file suit.
The donors to Texans For Lawsuit Reform included Richard Weekley ($126,000), Houston Texans owner Bob McNair ($125,000), Michael Stevens, Chairman of Michael Stevens Interests, Inc. ($50,000); Ernest & Young ($17,097) and PriceWaterhouseCooper L.L.P ($16,666).
Many of the larger corporations involved have their own political action committees, which give a great deal of money to candidates on both ends of political spectrum. Republicans do tend to get more than Democrats though, as they are often in step with the partnership’s "business friendly" views on Houston’s future.
These corporations overlap according to their interests: members with their own PAC’s include Cooper Industries, ExxonMobil, Reliant Energy, which is also connected to Centerpoint Energy, JP Morgan Chase, Dynegy Inc, Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P and Shell Oil.
The GHP’s influence reaches all the way to the mayor's office. Current Mayor Bill White is a former member, and former Mayor Lee Brown invited the GHP to make a third-party assessment of the city’s budget on more than one occasion.
© Copyright World Internet News 2006-07
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