Pressure to Donate to Romney Alleged in Complaint

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The Wall Street Journal

Pressure to Donate to Romney Alleged in Complaint
Fired Executive Says Refusal of Requests From CEO Played Role
By JOANN S. LUBLIN and MARY JACOBY
August 7, 2008; Page A4

A former executive who says his boss pressured him to contribute to Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has filed an employment-bias complaint that offers a rare glimpse behind the curtain of big-money corporate fund raising. Richard Pimentel, a former executive of Huron Consulting Group Inc., contends he lost his job as a financial-management consultant partly in retaliation for refusing the chief executive's repeated calls to contribute to the former Massachusetts governor's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

The company denies that charge. But officials confirm the authenticity of emails showing that the CEO of the Chicago-based corporate consulting firm, Gary E. Holdren, repeatedly linked his requests for donations to Huron's business prospects. The emails were provided to The Wall Street Journal by Mr. Pimentel. "This is not about me trying to force a political candidate on you and trying to see how you vote," Mr. Holdren wrote in one email, dated Jan. 27, 2008, to Huron managing directors, the firm's senior executives. "This is just business and the way business works." In another email, dated Sept. 21, 2007, Mr. Holdren wrote, "I wanted to thank all of you who contributed to Mitt Romney. You can't realize how much leverage this gives Huron going forward to ask various people for business."

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Mr. Romney received at least $92,000 in contributions from Huron executives, Federal Election Commission records show. That compares with $27,000 in donations to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's Democratic campaign for president; nearly $8,000 to his former rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York; and less than $4,000 to John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. In a statement, Huron said that the emails represented a "personal request" for voluntary contributions and that no executives benefited from or were punished for their responses. The firm added that such requests "are common in companies and organizations across America." Mr. Holdren, also the firm's chairman and president, was unreachable for comment, an aide said Wednesday.

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A spokesman for Mr. Romney said in an email that the campaign hadn't heard of the situation and wasn't a party to those emails. "If anyone at Huron Consulting felt pressured to contribute, we stand ready to refund the donations if requested," he wrote. In an election cycle in which presidential candidates have raised a record $1.2 billion so far, the emails underscore the corporate horse trading that can lie behind fund raising. Company executives may view political contributions as a way to build influence, strengthen business relationships and increase revenue.

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In his emails soliciting donations, Mr. Holdren mentioned the importance of gaining attention and business for the young firm, writing in September that a Romney donation "is some of the best practice-development money Huron could spend." One issue Mr. Holdren raised was Huron's dealings with Dan Dumezich, a tax lawyer at Mayer Brown in Chicago. "He has given Huron a large JP Morgan tax case and he is a young mover and shaker at Mayer Brown," Mr. Holdren wrote in a Jan. 27 email in which he asked Huron executives to attend a fund-raising event on Feb. 1 hosted by Mr. Dumezich's law firm.

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