For Deal, fundraising is a family affair

Few have enjoyed the kind of meteoric rise on the Georgia political scene as Denise Deal, the governor’s daughter-in-law. In the span of five years, Deal’s patronage and influence have elevated his son’s wife from a virtual unknown with little fundraising experience to one of the most powerful and best-paid campaign operatives in the state, complete with a marquee client list of state Republicans.

Campaign disclosures filed last week show Nathan Deal paid his daughter-in-law's two companies more than $1.5 million, or roughly $100 on every $1,000 the campaign raised for his re-election. While the Deal camp described the 10 percent commission as "standard," an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of gubernatorial races in Georgia and other states found Deal was paying one and a half to three times as much as what other campaigns have paid for fundraising.

In New York, fundraisers earned roughly 3 percent of the $80 million raised by Democrat Andrew Cuomo over his two successful bids for governor. South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley paid her top fund raising firm nearly 6 percent — about $478,000 — of the $8.4 million her re-election campaign took in. In Alabama, Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, spent about $250,000 paying fundraisers to raise $6.9 million in the two years before his re-election, according to reports. That works out to 3.6 percent.

“I have never seen or heard of numbers that high,” Sara Forman, a New York-based political fundraiser with 15 years of experience, said of Denise Deal’s compensation. “If I went in and said I wanted 10 percent, they would look at me like I had six heads.”

In an email to the AJC, Denise Deal defended her work.

“I regret that story after story has been written insinuating that I was either under-qualified or that he (Nathan Deal) personally was gaining something out of my work — neither is the case,” wrote Deal, who didn’t become a political fundraiser until her father-in-law ran for governor.

“I work very hard and I pride myself on giving 100+% in everything I do to guarantee success.”

Denise Deal’s fund-raising career has skyrocketed in the four years since her father-in-law was first elected governor. Her companies — Southern Magnolia Capital and The Sassafras Group — have together built a list that’s a “who’s who” of the state GOP political establishment, according to campaign finance records analyzed by the AJC. Her companies have earned more than $600,000 from other GOP campaigns in Georgia. That’s on top of the almost $1.8 million from Deal’s two bids for governor and a political action committee set up to further his agenda.

Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan group based in Washington D.C., said the large payouts from the Deal campaign to a family member may not violate the law but they damage public confidence.

“This is a self-dealing transaction that raises the appearance of nepotism,” McGehee said.

“When you have a financial transaction that benefits the governor’s family — especially when the rates are as high as they are here — that feeds public distrust in politics.”

Standard or standout?

There is nothing prohibiting campaigns in Georgia from hiring family members so long as they are reimbursed at a fair market value, campaign finance experts said. What that translates into, however, is unclear. Such a benchmark would be set by the state’s ethics commission, which has been roiled by political turmoil and without a leader since September.

In state political circles, Denise Deal’s payout has attracted attention, but few were willing to speak on the record. Fundraisers are notoriously reticent to be quoted in the media or to reveal the details of their contracts, and political insiders were similarly tight-lipped with Deal set to begin another four years at the helm of state government.

But several said that while 10 percent is not unheard of for fundraisers, there are often many caveats to their contracts that make their actual pay day far lower. Some fundraisers take a smaller percentage on money raised through direct mail. With others, there is a cap or sliding scale on compensation after certain targeted dollar amounts are hit. Still others don’t pay on a percentage at all but provide a flat fee with bonuses for hitting certain targets.

To put Denise Deal’s compensation in perspective, the top-paid in-house staffer in the 2012 presidential campaign was Mitt Romney’s political director Rich Beeson, who earned $214,375.

And the payout stands out even in recent Georgia campaigns.

Gov. Deal's opponent in the November election, state Sen. Jason Carter, raised $8.3 million, a little more than half of what the governor raised. His campaign did internal fundraising and paid outside consultants. Carter's campaign listed paying a combined $153,000 to fundraising consultants and a top in-house finance staffer, according to his campaign disclosure reports.

Deal’s predecessor, Gov. Sonny Perdue, used both private fundraisers and in-house staffers to take in about $14 million between the time he was sworn in for his first term and the end of the year he won re-election, 2006. Reports listed him paying them about $570,000, or 4 percent.

The House Republican Trust, the fundraising arm of the House’s majority party, has paid one of Denise Deal’s firms $81,000 since the beginning of 2012.

Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, treasurer of the trust, said every campaign he’s been involved in paid their fundraisers 10 percent of what they raised.

Deal earned her reputation as a strong fundraiser by the numbers she put up for her father-in-law in 2010, even though Deal was outraised by his Democratic opponent, former Gov. Roy Barnes.

“She is the best fund-raiser in the state of Georgia,” Peake said. “I wouldn’t hire her just for who she is. She is really good.”

Still, one thing is indisputable: Her businesses have thrived as her father-in-law’s political capital has risen. She has counted among her clients House Speaker David Ralston, the state Republican Party, the state House and Senate Republican fundraising arms and state Senate President Pro Tem David Shafer.

Shafer, R-Duluth, said Denise Deal’s family ties didn’t influence his decision to hire her.

“She did a good, professional job,” said Shafer, who paid her companies more than $73,000.

State Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, began using Denise Deal to raise funds for his legislative bid soon after Nathan Deal was elected governor in 2010. He said in Georgia, ruled for generations by Democrats, there was a shortage of established GOP fundraisers to keep up with the large number of Republicans elected to office in recent years.

“To say that she is getting work because of who her father-in-law is, that’s unfair to her. She works very hard and has earned her success,” Mullis said.

Still, in his last election, Deal’s incumbancy gave his daughter-in-law a distinct leg up: many large, institutional donors automatically give to any incumbent governor running for re-election, no matter who the fundraiser is.

And while lawmakers say Denise Deal’s companies aren’t hired because of her powerful father-in-law, there are many reasons for them to want to curry a governor’s favor. A governor headsthe majority party and has life or death power over legislation that members of the General Assembly approve, including the state’s $21 billion budget.

A governor can help them raise big campaign money by hosting or showing up at their fundraisers.

A family affair

A native of Thomaston, Ga., Denise Deal caught the political bug working as an intern for Democratic U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler. She moved to Washington, D.C., after graduating from the University of Georgia and met her husband — Jason Deal, now a superior court judge — while working in the U.S. Senate Post Office. In 1993, she landed a job in then-U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal’s office on Capitol Hill when Deal was still a Democrat and went on to work as a state and federal lobbyist for the Georgia Farm Bureau.

In 1998, she joined the Jackson Electric Membership Corporation where she managed large commercial and industrial electrical accounts. But she departed after the birth of her third child-and took over as executive director of Vision 2030, an offshoot of the Greater Hall County Chamber of Commerce designed to identify future growth opportunities in the region.

In 2009, she joined Nathan Deal’s campaign for governor.

“I was asked to join the team and was in the room the day the decision was made to run,” she said.

In 2010, she founded Southern Magnolia Capital, whose main activity appears to have been fundraising. She later bought out her partner in that firm and founded The Sassafras Group, named, she said, because it’s a local tree that has three separate and distinct leaves, “much like my precious three children.”

In an email, Denise Deal praised the governor “as one of the kindest and most respectable individuals I have ever met.”

“I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to have worked with him over the years and blessed to be a part of his family,” she wrote.

Chris Riley, Deal’s longtime top aide, said that in the last final 30 days of the campaign Denise Deal deferred a $700,000 payment owed to the Sassafras Group and its staff of five to ensure the campaign had the money it needed for some $500,000 worth of late media buys.

“Denise put the team’s needs ahead of her own interests,” Riley said.

“When it was crunch time, Denise had more skin in the game than just a paycheck. It is not just a business with us, we are all emotionally invested.”