Disney-ABC's Top Lobbyist Richard Bates: Major Dem Donor, Former DCCC Director

May 21st, 2015 7:44 AM

Andrew Stiles at the Washington Free Beacon – the original reporter that found the Stephanopoulos donations to the Clinton Foundation – has a new story Thursday on Richard Bates, the top lobbyist in Washngton for the Disney-ABC folks. Unsurprisingly, before joining the Mouse, Bates was executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee “under the chairmanship of Rep. Beryl Anthony (D., Ark.), a political ally of then-Governor Bill Clinton.”

This is not atypical. Top CBS lobbyist Martin Franks aided the network for 25 years before retiring in 2013, but was also executive director of the DCCC from 1981-86, after serving as issues director for the unsuccessful 1980 Carter-Mondale campaign.

Stiles noted:

Bates’ personal political donations have gone almost exclusively to Democratic candidates and committees. He has contributed more than $64,000 to Democrats since joining Disney in 1991, and just $2,000 to Republican candidates. Bates has given money to Bill Clinton ($1,000), Hillary Clinton ($2,750), the DCCC ($4,250), the DSCC ($500), and the Democratic National Committee ($1,000).

Bates’ donation are typical of Disney/ABC News employees, who have collectively donated almost $3.4 million to Democratic candidates and committees since 2000, almost double the amount given to Republicans. The top five recipients of Disney employee contributions in the current cycle are the DCCC ($166,300), the DSCC ($100,178), EMILY’s List ($100,000), the DNC ($76,600), Democratic Senator Cory Booker ($37,200), and Ready for Hillary ($30,000).

When Hillary Clinton ran for Senate in 2000, she was by far the top recipient of Disney employee contributions. Clinton received more than $70,000 worth of donations, which was more than double that of the second largest recipient (Al Gore). Disney employees gave more than $22,000 to Clinton’s reelection effort in 2006, and more than $94,000 to her presidential campaign in 2008. (Barack Obama received $474,000, compared to John McCain’s $27,000.) Disney employees favored Obama over Mitt Romney by a margin of nearly eight-to-one in 2012.