Boss Hog 5

Candidates get financial support from industry

By PAT STITH and JOBY WARRICK, Staff Writers

A few days past Christmas 1991, the Murphy family of Rose Hill sent its gift -- $16,000 -- to Jim Hunt, a Democrat who was running for a third term as governor.

Wendell H. Murphy, chairman of Murphy Family Farms, didn't give anything.

But his mother, Lois, gave $4,000.

So did his son, Wendell H. Murphy Jr., who is known as Dell. And his sister-in-law, Lynn, and his daughter, Wendy.

Campaign finance reports show that since 1990, the Murphys and top executives of their family-owned hog corporation have given about $150,000 to a variety of candidates, most of them Democrats.

Hunt, who has received $40,000 from the Murphys since Christmas 1991, is at the head of the list.

On Oct. 15, 1992, just three weeks before the gubernatorial election, the Murphys sent Hunt another $20,000 -- $2,000 from Wendell H. Murphy and $2,000 each from his wife, mother, brother, sister-in-law, sister, daughter, son, daughter-in-law and stepson.

Making a lot of contributions at one time is known as bundling, and that's what the Murphys were doing. The maximum contribution for an individual is $4,000 per election. That meant that the Murphys gave two bundles -- the first for the primary election, and the second for the general election.

If the bundled contribution is big enough, it can leave a lasting impression on a candidate. But Hunt said he didn't know the Murphy family had given his campaign $20,000 on one day.

"I knew he was a substantial contributor to me," Hunt said. "I didn't know exactly how much he gave when."

Hunt noted that hog producers collectively gave less money to him than to his 1992 opponent, Republican Jim Gardner.

The hog industry in North Carolina includes a number of big political contributors. Among them are the Matthews family, owners of Carroll's Foods Inc., of Warsaw; the Maxwell family of Goldsboro Milling Co. in Goldsboro; the Fetterman family of Lundy Packing Co. in Clinton; and William H. Prestage, president of Prestage Farms in Clinton.

But since 1990, the Murphys and executives of their firm have given more than the rest combined.

Murphy also helps Democrats in other ways. Last Nov. 3, he lent his company plane to the North Carolina Democratic Party to fly Hunt from Raleigh to campaign rallies in Elizabeth City and Kinston and then back to Raleigh.

Murphy Farms also is active in the N.C. Pork Producers' political action committee. Since early 1991, the Pork PAC has made $90,823 in campaign contributions, according to reports filed with the State Board of Elections in Raleigh.

The Pork PAC gives to Democrats and Republicans, to members of Congress, to candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, to most members of the Council of State and to county commission candidates in Eastern North Carolina.

Mike Easley, state attorney general, got in-kind contributions worth $4,000 from the Pork PAC in 1992, when he won election. That was the pork group's cost of organizing a $1,000-a-person reception and a $25-per-couple pig-picking for Easley.

But the contribution didn't help Easley much, said the attorney general and Walter W. Cherry, executive director of the N.C. Pork Producers Association.

"As I recall, we didn't raise anything," Easley said.

The Pork PAC and individual hog producers gave candidates for the N.C. General Assembly at least $57,309 in 1993-94. Given the size of the industry, that's a lot. The industries that give the most to legislative candidates are health, utilities and lawyers.

Legislators have the power to hurt, or help, the pork industry with laws relating to taxes, zoning, environmental regulation, truck weight limits, dead hog disposal and odor nuisance suits.

Nobody gets a lot of money, but almost everybody gets something.

Sen Marc Basnight, Senate president pro tem, received $1,700. Daniel T. Blue, who was speaker of the House, got $1,400. James D. Speed, chairman of the Senate agriculture committee got $1,200, and Vernon G. James, then chairman of the House agriculture committee, got $1,145.

If a legislator didn't get money, the pork producers at least chipped in to send him or her a ham. In February 1993, the Pork PAC reporting buying 170 "N.C. Leg. Gift Boxes," at a cost of $4,240.