OUR FOLEY GAVE TO THAT FOLEY

NAME SOUNDS FAMILIAR

Foley & Lardner fills Foley’s Larder

By Michael Horne

The Foley & Lardner Political Fund, Inc. is the Washington-based political committee of the venerable Milwaukee law and lobbying firm.

Foley & Lardner, which prefers to be called simply, “Foley,” [except in Boston, where that’s banned], has made six contributions totaling $5,750 to the campaigns of former Rep. Mark Foley, the disgraced congressman from Florida.

Milwaukeeworld called the firm to inquire about the donations. The woman who answers the phone over at Foley said her boss wasn’t in right now, but added that Mark Foley is not a blood relative of Foley & Lardner.

The donations to the cause of the Florida Republican ran from August, 1997 to December, 2005, or roughly for the time it would take a potential Congressional pageboy to go from age 10 (too young) to an all-grown-up 18 (too old).

The only other Milwaukee outfit worth mentioning as a Foley contributor was the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company Federal Political Action Committee. The giant firm’s connection with the former congressman dates all the way to the last century. Rep. Foley aroused sufficient interest in the PAC that it was enticed to contribute $1,000 to his campaign on January 26, 1999. NML then pumped out another grand on November 8^th of that non-election year, and blew its wad in May, 2001, with another thousand dollar contribution that spewed forth, as if by magic, from the inexhaustible fountains concealed within the hard granite columns -- capped in their Corinthian glory -- that proudly adorn the façade of NML’s headquarters building downtown.

Then, spent, NML walked away from the relationship, and ceased the shower of gold that had cascaded into Foley’s bulging purse.