Copyright 2001 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle

February 07, 2001, Wednesday  3 STAR EDITION

SECTION: A;  Pg. 28

LENGTH: 752 words

HEADLINE: Jackson and his postpartum depression

SOURCE: Staff

BYLINE: CRAGG HINES; Hines is a Houston Chronicle columnist based in Washington, D.C. (cragg.hines@chron.com)

BODY:

THE biggest thunderclap from the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson's recent catting around may not yet have been heard. His fathering a child with an aide might have passed in and out of the news quickly enough, and the impervious Jackson soon could have been back on the street full-bore and full-volume. But his paternity peccadillo, given the payments to the mother of the child, has reawakened interest in the long-murky financing of his web of civil rights and economic development organizations.

The line many journalists have taken is that if Jackson ever really had a chance to be a national nominee (which most of us thought pretty dim) then it would be time to look into the morass. Sure, it was lazy and indulgent - for reporters and Jackson - but that's where it stood for years.

Now, however, news reporters are digging and a congressional inquiry might not be far behind. Any smoke could force federal regulators, who seemed to give Jackson's groups a free ride for the eight years of the Democratic Clinton regime, to perform traditional oversight. The new Republicans in charge will at least want to see if there's anything in federal tax and grant filings to make the mouthy minister squirm.

Most alarmingly for Jackson, there seems to be, for the first time, a disgruntled insider willing to fan the controversy. At least two leaks from within Jackson's usually tightknit camp have found their way to the National Enquirer. And businesses who have long carped privately about playing ball with Jackson may see this as the moment to disengage. But, then again, they may not, as the corporate boys will also tell you that making peace with Jackson is a relatively cheap way to buy commercial tranquillity.

As with former President Clinton and the fund-raising scandals and the Monica Lewinsky affair and the continuous corner-cutting, questions about the financial arrangements for Jackson's organizations have always been a disappointing cloud over what otherwise should have been a great, uplifting story.

Jackson's crusade to get black Americans a bigger piece of the pie is as worthy a project as has been undertaken by any civil rights figure since Rosa Parks saw no reason to walk on to the back of the bus. But Jackson's efforts have too often had the whiff of a shakedown about them, a bid aimed at much as helping family and friends as benefiting blacks more broadly.

Now comes the Chicago Sun-Times with some corroboration on that point and other news outlets with questions about what Jackson's outfits do with the money he raises.

The Sun-Times reports that Jackson's importuning of big corporations has resulted in a bonanza for at least one associate.

Jackson's objections to recent communications mergers have resulted not only in major contributions to his charities but also in multimillion-dollar deals for a friend.

The newspaper said that Jackson's opposition to the SBC-Ameritech merger dissolved after he persuaded the phone giants to sell part of its cellular business to his colleague Chester Davenport.

Jackson initially objected to the GTE-Bell Atlantic merger, but his qualms subsided after GTE agreed to finance most of the SBC-Ameritech cellular spinoff.

Oh, by the way: SBC-Ameritech gave $ 500,000 to Jackson's Citizenship Education Fund, and GTE-Bell Atlantic ponied up $ 1 million. A former Ameritech official told the Sun-Times: "I don't think any company wants to be extorted, and I think there's a difference between being reminded and being extorted," Douglas L. Whitley said - but the difference may be too subtle for the noncorporate laity.

Jackson's tax-exempt CEF appears to be the reverend's cash cow. It's the group that paid $ 35,000 to Karin Stanford, the former aide who had Jackson's child in 1999. At least one CEF memo reported by the Washington Post states specifically that the money was to help Stanford buy a house. Such private use of tax-exempt funds could raise legal questions.

Beyond that specific issue, there is the broader question of how the bulk of CEF funds are used. According to The O'Reilly Report, a Fox News program, of the $ 12 million CEF raised in 1998 and 1999, only $ 47,000 went for educational activities.

In the early 1980s, when federal auditors challenged how a Jackson group, PUSH-Excel, spent $ 2 million in government grant funds, Jackson labeled it "selective persecution." He'll no doubt have a similar line of defense if the feds ever should take after him again. But they need to follow the money.

TYPE: -LINKS-; Editorial Opinion

LOAD-DATE: February 8, 2001