Ranking: 8
Total contributions to super PACs: $3.16 million*
- $1.5 million to American Crossroads (pro Republican) from Crow Holdings LLC
- $650,000 to Restore Our Future (pro Mitt Romney) from Crow Holdings LLC
- $500,000 to Restore Our Future from Trammell S. Crow (brother)
- $150,000 to Restore Our Future from Harlan Crow
- $250,000 to FreedomWorks for America (pro tea party) from Crow Holdings LLC
- $35,000 to the Campaign for Primary Accountability (bipartisan) from Crow Holdings LLC
- $20,000 to Freedom PAC (pro conservative) from HRC Family Branch Partnership
Federal hard and soft money and 527 contributions:
- $50,000 to the Republican National Committee
- $20,000 to the Republican National Congressional Committee
- $5,000 to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty
- $5,000 to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney
State-level contributions:
- $50,000 to Texas Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas
- $25,000 to Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
- $25,000 to Kelly Hancock, Republican candidate for Texas Senate in District 9
Corporate name: Crow Family Holdings, LLC
Corporate subsidiaries: Crow Investment Trust. Substantial stakes in Wyndham Hotels, Trammell Crow Residential and Trammel Crow Co.
Total spent on lobbying (2007-2011): None found.
Family: Trammell Crow (father, deceased), Trammell S. Crow (brother)
Biography:
Harlan Crow heads up Crow Family Holdings, which manages the Crows’ assets stemming from the late Trammell Crow’s massive real estate investment and development company.
The elder Crow came from modest means and started Trammell Crow Co. from scratch in 1948. By 1971, Forbes called it the “largest landlord in the United States.”
Harlan Crow, Trammell’s third son, took over the company in 1988 in the middle of a real estate crash. He took the company public in 1997 and remains a director.
Now Crow is chairman and
Crow helped found the free market, conservative nonprofit Club for Growth, according to the Savannah Morning News. The organization has injected more than $10 million into the 2012 election via both its nonprofit arm and its super PAC, Club for Growth Action.
He is also a member of the board of trustees of the American Enterprise Institute, a free market, conservative think tank.
The American Enterprise Institute, and Club for Growth in particular, favor tea party candidates, but not all of Crow’s giving has been to such free market Republicans. In fact, this year he gave $5,000, the maximum contribution, to Republican establishment favorite (and tea party foil) Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who is running for U.S. Senate in Texas. Dewhurst has faced a barrage of attack ads from Club for Growth’s PAC.
The Crow family has also been a major donor to Restore Our Future, a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC, to which Crow Holdings, Harlan Crow and his brother Trammell S. Crow have given $1.3 million as of the end of June. Crow Holdings also gave $1.5 million to American Crossroads, a conservative super PAC co-founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove.
Restore Our Future and American Crossroads are the two best-funded super PACs in the election.
In addition to his political notoriety, Crow has become well known in certain art circles for his collection of statues of dictators. Statues of Stalin, Mao and Lenin exist alongside lesser known despots in Crow’s private garden.
Last updated: July 26, 2012
*2011-2012 election cycle; source, Federal Election Commission.