Tallahassee · Billionaire John Walton, son of the late Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton, has emerged as Florida's biggest individual political donor of this campaign season, giving $325,000 last month to Gov. Jeb Bush's re-election effort.
A major financier of the private-school voucher movement backed by Bush, Walton also sits on the board of directors of the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing giant that has had an exclusive, multimillion-dollar government contract for the replacement of trees destroyed under Florida's canker eradication effort.
Since 1998, when Bush became governor, the Florida Department of Agriculture has overseen at least two tree replacement programs that have disbursed $52 million in state and federal funds for consumers to spend only at Wal-Mart stores.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
This story is unbelievable (via Hesiod).