LEWIS, Charles R., III 1953-

PERSONAL:

Born 1953. Education: University of Delaware, B.A. (with honors), 1975; Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, M.A., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Alexandria, VA. Office—Center for Public Integrity, 910 Seventeenth St. NW, Seventh Floor, Washington, DC 20006.

CAREER:

Investigative reporter for ABC News and producer for 60 Minutes, CBS News, Washington, D.C., 1977-88; Center for Public Integrity, Washington, DC, founder and executive director, 1990—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

MacArthur fellowship, John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation, 1998.

WRITINGS:

(With Alejandro Benes and Meredith O'Brien) The Buying of the President, Avon (New York, NY), 1996.

(Contributor) The Buying of the Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Avon (New York, NY), 1998.

(Contributor) The Buying of the President 2000, Avon (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Bill Allison) The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions, and What You Can Do about It, Morrow (New York, NY), 2001.

(Contributor) The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers—And What They Expect in Return, Perennial (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Nation, and numerous other publications.

SIDELIGHTS:

After working as an investigative reporter for ABC News and a producer for CBS News' 60 Minutes, Charles R. Lewis III founded the Center for Public Integrity to investigate the influence of money on presidential campaigns, in the executive branch, and in the halls of Congress. The center's quadrennial Buying of the President series, launched in 1996, has become a standard work on the financing of campaigns. In addition, the center's publications, including its journal, The Public i, have uncovered a number of scandals, including Bill Clinton's use of the Lincoln Bedroom for fundraising, Pat Buchanan's hiring of a white supremacist for his campaign, and George W. Bush's strong connections to Enron. Other studies have revealed the ways in which White House trade officials go on to represent foreign nations as lobbyists, the deficiencies in airline safety regulation (which proved tragically prescient), and the restrictions that the U.S. military imposed on the press during the Persian Gulf War. In 1997 Lewis and the center launched the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, an unprecedented network of investigative reporters throughout the world. In 2001 he created the equally ambitious Global Access project, designed to monitor government accountability and openness in every single country.

In 1996 the center began a tradition by publishing The Buying of the President, a comprehensive look at the financing of the various presidential candidates. "Although it focuses on the 1996 contenders for the White House, almost every page contains a valuable lesson for coverage of any politician.… Perhaps the overarching lesson: the most shocking stories are not found in the realm of illegal behavior, but rather in what's legal," noted Steve Weinberg in the Columbia Journalism Review. The book uncovers a number of intriguing deals, such as Bob Dole's sponsorship of a special tax provision that would benefit the Gallo family, which donated heavily to his campaign, and Bill Clinton's financial connections to the Goldman Sachs investment firm, which provided his secretary of the treasury, Robert Rubin. Multinational Monitor contributor Robert Weissman concluded that "the aggregate effect of the book's documentation should succeed in persuading even the staunchest believers in the integrity of the current U.S. political system that something is seriously wrong." A couple of years later, the center followed up with The Buying of Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, which "does its job more thoroughly than anything that's come before. Lewis succeeds where most money-and-politics reportage (including my own) falls short: showing the link between Capitol Hill and ordinary life," maintained Washington Monthly contributor Peter Overby. Lewis and his coauthors document the ways in which the family grocery bill, the price of an airline ticket, nursing home care, and numerous other everyday matters are affected, usually for the worse, by the actions of Congress and the special interests that influence it.

The Buying of the President 2000 once again takes this question of influence peddling to the presidential level. As with the 1996 edition, the contributors uncover the links between corporations amd the candidates, noting Al Gore's longstanding connections to Occidental Petroleum and George W. Bush's relationship with Richard Rainwater, founder of the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain, Columbia/HCA, as well as Bill Bradley's ties to big chemical firms and John McCain's friends in the telecommunications industry. "This book will make you angry. It's supposed to," claimed Washington Post reviewer Jennifer Howard. Some of that anger might properly be directed at the press corps, for the book is also something of a rebuke to the usual campaign coverage, as Arianna Huffington pointed out in the Chicago Sun-Times: "To get the full chilling picture of the buying of the presidency, you'll have to read the book. Because you are not likely to hear a lot more about it from the media.… The fundamental, systemic corruption of our politics is far too all-consuming to fit the media's ethic of politics as entertainment."

In addition to buying political favors, corporations and wealthy Americans have also proven adept at avoiding the taxes that pay for those favors. In The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions, and What You Can Do about It, Lewis reveals how corporate tax shelters, complex loopholes, and outright fraud have allowed numerous companies and individuals to avoid paying any taxes at all. "If you don't much care for the federal government and you think shorting Uncle Sam a few bucks every April is just good clean fun, you might want to consider this: Tax avoidance is costing you more than $1,600 a year.… And the ones stealing your money … are some of the nation's richest people and companies," reported John Mark Eberhart in his review for the Kansas City Star. Among other stories, the authors describe the ploys, including disguises and secret hideaways, that Joseph and Pamela Ross use to evade taxes on their fortune—a fortune derived from government contracts. "As these tales of privilege and chutzpah set readers' blood to boil, the authors judiciously urge their audience to demand fair tax treatment from lawmakers," wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Sun-Times, January 12, 2000, Arianna Huffington, review of The Buying of the President 2000, p. 39.

Columbia Journalism Review, May-June, 1996, Steve Weinberg, review of The Buying of the President, p. 68.

Kansas City Star, April 25, 2001, John Mark Eberhart, review of The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions, and What You Can Do about It, p. K2390.

Multinational Monitor, April, 1996, Robert Weissman, review of The Buying of the President, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, April 23, 2001, review of The Cheating of America, p. 58.

Washington Monthly, December, 1998, Peter Overby, review of The Buying of Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, p. 48.

Washington Post, March 5, 2000, Jennifer Howard, review of The Buying of the President 2000, p. 10.*