Since taking over his father's business in 1971, Galen Weaber has transformed Weaber, Inc. into the biggest lumber mill in Pennsylvania. The company harvests roughly 50 million board feet each year and sends most of its wholesale lumber products to industry giants like Home Depot. "It's a hungry mill," according to a state forestry advisor.
Weaber sees Democrats as a threat to his wealth, bent on regulating the industry. "I started this business with three people, and now I have about 500 people working here," he once told reporters. "If I had to start it up now, I couldn't do it. There's too many people telling me what to do and how to do it.''
''The Republicans," he added, "will cut a lot of that out."
To ensure that Congress and the White House are controlled by a party determined to ease federal regulation, Weaber gave nearly all of the $157,750 he contributed during the last election cycle to the GOP. One of the few exceptions was a small donation Weaber made to a party that takes an even more hands-off approach to business than the Republicans: $250 to the Libertarians.
Weaber also sent $10,000 to a "victory committee" for Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a controversial scheme that some say enables donors to skirt campaign finance laws. The Santorum Victory Committee transferred more than $100,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which then spent the money on "close races" like Santorum's. Most of the donations were corporate money that, by law, are not supposed to be spent on behalf of individual candidates.
-- Helene Blatter
