Jackson the Five (Rod)

Like father, like son, it seems; by which I mean it would appear from what the feds are saying that Jesse Jackson, Jr., learned a thing or two from his old man about how to play the shakedown game. I had such fun earlier this decade digging through the finances of Jesse pere and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition -- here, for example:

Jackson's [the father, Jesse Sr.] tax-exempt charity [Citizenship Education Fund] nearly quintupled its revenue in one year, going from a reported $2 million in 1998 to $9.7 million in 1999. Huge contributions came from corporations that depended on Jackson's imprimatur for their multibillion-dollar mergers to pass regulatory muster. A review of federal and Illinois state tax documents from 1999 show that telephone companies SBC and Ameritech donated $500,000 tax-deductible dollars to CEF that year, while GTE gave $625,000 and Bell Atlantic forked over $375,000.

Were these corporate giants simply being altruistic? Hardly.

Without the approval of America's No. 1 civil-rights leader, who had a habit of criticizing proposed mega-mergers on racial grounds, it is unclear that they would have made it through an FCC headed by then-Chairman William Kennard, an outspoken proponent of "diversity."

Corporate America saw in the 1998 Citibank-Travelers merger how useful Jackson could be in winning over federal regulators despite fervent opposition from activists.

Many civil-rights and community organizations opposed the Citibank-Travelers union. But when Rainbow/PUSH came to shove before Clinton-appointed regulators, Jackson's backing carried more clout.

It escaped no one's notice that Citicorp donated $50,000 to Jackson-controlled CEF in 1998, and Travelers, whose CEO Sandy Weill courted Jackson personally, gave $100,000.

Grass-roots activists complained in the deal's aftermath that Jesse Jackson could be rented, that he was putting his unique moral stature up for bid. They were not the only ones to notice.

In 1998, Jackson called a press conference to announce his opposition to the merger of telecom giants SBC and Ameritech - which he endorsed a year later. Did the promise of a $500,000 donation have something to do with the flip-flop?

The deal could not have gone through regulators without either SBC or Ameritech selling off half of their wireless business. Ameritech announced it would sell its portion for $3.3 billion to a GTE-led venture.

Then Jesse had a closed-door meeting with executives of SBC and Ameritech. He told reporters he was there to help execs draft a list of black-owned firms that ought to be cut in on the GTE deal.

GTE selected Georgetown Partners, a black-owned investment firm with no prior telecom experience, as its partner in the lucrative deal. It set up Georgetown Partners executive Chester Davenport as head of the former Ameritech operation.

This is the same Chester Davenport who is a close Jackson friend and a big donor to Jackson causes, particularly his Wall Street Project. Did Jesse make winning his valuable endorsement of the controversial merger contingent upon his buddy getting a cut of the $3 billion pie?

When GTE and Bell Atlantic merged in 1999, they became Verizon. Many activist groups opposed that deal too. But not Rainbow/PUSH, which came out for the mega-merger - and saw its CEF division take in $1 million from the two corporations that year.

Verizon was a lead sponsor of this year's Wall Street Project conference, and has pledged $300,000 through the year 2002 to help pay for Rainbow/PUSH conventions.

If this news from the feds pans out, that's evidence that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and that Young Jackson learned well from le maitre. Glad this stuff is coming out before Barack Obama becomes president, and there's any potential pressure to keep names out of it. I hope Jesse Jr.'s political career is ruined by this Blagojevich scandal too. We can't have too few members of the Jesse Jackson family in public life.