Team Schiavo's deep pockets

'Following the money' reveals a host of right wing organizations, many affiliated with the right wing Philanthropy Roundtable, abundantly funding the Terri Schiavo case

Bill Berkowitz writes:

The Most Obscene Intrusion by an Outsider Award, however, goes hands down to Randall Terry, the founder of the radical antiabortion group Operation Rescue and the President of the Society for Truth and Justice. Terry was brought on board by Schiavo's parents, who hoped he could mobilize Christian fundamentalist support for their daughter. "Our family asked Randall Terry to come, and we gave him carte blanche to put Terri's fight in front of the American people," Bob Schindler, Terri's father, said. "He did exactly what we asked, and more. Randall organized vigils and protests, he coordinated the media, he helped us meet with Governor Bush."

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"In the Schiavo case," wrote one of Michael Schiavo's lawyers, Jon Eisenberg, following the money "leads to a consortium of conservative foundations, with $2 billion in total assets, that are funding a legal and public relations war of attrition intended to prolong Terri's life indefinitely in order to further their own faith-based cultural agendas."

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Eisenberg discovered that "many of the attorneys, activists and organizations working to keep Schiavo on life support all these years have been funded by members of the Philanthropy Roundtable." According to Eisenberg,

"The Philanthropy Roundtable is a collection of foundations that have funded conservative causes ranging from abolition of Social Security to anti- tax crusades and United Nations conspiracy theories. The Roundtable members' founders include scions of America's wealthiest families, including Richard Mellon Scaife (heir to the Mellon industrial, oil and banking fortune), Harry Bradley (electronics), Joseph Coors (beer), and the Smith Richardson family (pharmaceutical products)."

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The Washington, DC-based Philanthropy Roundtable -- a conservative counterpart to the mainstream Council on Foundations -- was initially operated under the aegis of the Institute for Educational Affairs (IEA), an organization founded in 1978 by two seminal figures of conservative philanthropy, William Simon and Irving Kristol. The IEA now operates as the Madison Center for Educational Affairs.

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The Philanthropy Roundtable's (PR) Board of Directors reads like a Who's Who of the world of right wing philanthropy. The Board includes: Chairman Daniel S. Peters, the president of the Ruth & Lovett Peters Foundation; Vice Chairman Heather Richardson Higgins, the president and director of the Randolph Foundation; Secretary and Treasurer Joseph S. Dolan, the executive director of the Achelis and Bodman Foundations; Kimberly O. Dennis, the executive director of the D & D Foundation and director of the National Research Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute; Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution; Michael W. Grebe, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, and James Piereson, the Executive Director of the John M. Olin Foundation.

According to Media Transparency, between 1993 and 2003 the Philanthropy Roundtable received over $4.3 million from such right-wing foundations as the Roe, Earhart, John M. Olin, Lynde and Harry Bradley, the William E. Simon, and Randolph Foundations. Grebe's Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has been particularly generous, giving the Roundtable nearly $1.5 million, all of which was earmarked "to support general operations."

The January/February 2005 edition of the organization's bi-monthly publication, Philanthropy -- which according to a Right Web profile "highlights cases of individuals and organizations that are making a difference by using the private sector" -- features "Foundations and Public Policy," a transcript of a discussion that was held at PR's recent annual meeting in Palm Beach between Piereson and Rebecca Rimel, the president of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

In recent days, Michael Schiavo has effectively and credibly pointed out the hypocrisy of mostly right-wing politicians and organizations that have injected themselves into his wife's case. But Schiavo's concern is nothing new. During an October 27, 2003 interview with CNN's Larry King, Schiavo told him that the Schindler's had offered him $700,000 "to walk away."