Courtesy of the The News Service of Florida, we have information on who George Steinbrenner gave campaign contributions to here in Tampa.
Steinbrenner gave the max ($500) to struggling GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum in 2009. He also give $500 to South Florida GOP Congressional candidate David Rivera when he was still running for state Senate.
Closer to home, he gave $500 to former Hillsborough County Assistant Prosecutor Pam Bondi in her bid for the GOP Attorney General nomination, $500 to Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman in his bid for state Senate this year, and $500 to Congressman Adam Putnam, running for agriculture commissioner.
In the race for House District 60, he gave $250 to Republican Sean Harrison.
But nationally, Steinbrenner gave a lot to Democrats. As Steve Kornacki of Salon.com reports:
A quick scan of Steinbrenner's political contributions to federal candidates offers some support for this claim. From 1980 until now, Steinbrenner gave $83,850 in personal donations to individual Democratic candidates for office. He also gave $50,000 to various national committees, like the Democrats' House and Senate campaign committees. In that same span, he gave only $28,950 to individual Republican candidates and $30,000 to GOP party committees (and just about all of those committee donations were for the Florida Republican Party).
Before he ever became famous as the owner of the Yankees, Steinbrenner got in trouble for financial contributions to one Republican: Richard M. Nixon.
In 1974, a year after being part of a group that purchased the American League team from CBS, the Boss pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to charges of illegal contributions to the campaigns of Nixon and several congressmen. He admitted that he influenced and intimidated American Ship Building employees to lie to the FBI and the U.S. grand jury that was investigating illegalities. The employees had given $42,325 to Nixon, writing checks on the same day they received bonuses.
Steinbrenner faced a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $15,000 fine. He pleaded guilty to one count and got off with the fine. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended him from baseball for two years because of the guilty plea. The suspension was lifted after 15 months for good behavior. President Ronald Reagan pardoned him in 1989.
