Take Jim Richards, president of Southwire, the nation's largest copper wire and cable maker, and one of Newt's most reliable supporters. Over the last decade, Richards' company has earned a string of regulatory complaints, ranging from pollution problems to worker safety violations. In 1991, Southwire developed a revolutionary recycling plan: The company took 3,400 tons of hazardous waste, mixed it with fertilizer, and shipped it to Bangladesh, where it was bought by farmers who spread it on their fields by hand. A federal judge was unimpressed with this innovation, and fined Southwire $1 million, the largest environmental fine ever in South Carolina. Newt's opinion? He defends the company as "good citizens," adding that "Southwire automatically has my attention every morning."

Bo Callaway was a Georgia congressman in the '60s, Army secretary in the early '70s, and Gerald Ford's 1976 campaign manager--for a while at least. He was forced to resign from the Ford campaign after the Justice Department investigated whether he'd misused his Army secretary post to get Forest Service permits to expand Crested Butte, his Colorado ski resort. Crested Butte was in the news again in 1989 when Callaway hosted Newt for an 18-day retreat. Trouble was, it wasn't clear who paid for Newt's stay: Callaway said he was reimbursed by GOPAC, but a Gingrich spokesperson was unaware of any such payment. Only after the media got ahold of the story did Newt admit he'd failed to report GOPAC's financing of the trip and agree to amend his disclosure forms.

J. Patrick Rooney is head of Indiana-based Golden Rule Insurance. Golden Rule sells Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), which work like Individual Retirement Accounts for health-care costs, and Rooney stands to make a killing should Newt-style "health reform" be enacted. Newt has graciously plugged MSAs in Congress and in his college course, where he lauded Golden Rule itself. (It skipped his mind to mention that Rooney & Co. had given Newt's various enterprises well over a hundred grand.) Still better news: A House subcommittee that had been investigating Golden Rule before the Republicans took over has now put off the inquiry. The new head of the subcommittee? Texas Republican and former GOPAC fundraiser Joe Barton.

Dwayne Andreas, chairman of agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), may also be the nation's single biggest corporate welfare queen (see "Dwayne's World," Mother Jones). In order to keep those subsidies coming (ADM may receive as much as $2.1 billion a year from Uncle Sam's ethanol subsidy alone), Andreas knows how to keep politicians happy. He (along with family and corporate executives) was one of the single biggest soft money donors in the 1992 elections with a combined total of nearly $1.4 million, most to the Republicans. Nor is this kind of giving anything new for Andreas: Back in the '70s, $25,000 of his money was traced to a bank account used by the Watergate burglars.

Richard DeVos, president of Amway, is another big spender in Newt's camp. Amway gave an almost unbelievable $2,560,000 in soft money to the Republicans in the last election. Of course, the direct-sales giant could use some friends in government. In Canada (where it's so much harder to buy a good politician), Amway spent a whopping $38.1 million to settle a 1989 suit by the government claiming that the company undervalued merchandise to escape customs duties. This came on top of a $25 million fine by the province of Ontario when Amway pleaded guilty to criminal fraud in 1983. That two-and-a-half million in Republican soft money is starting to look like a bargain.

William K. Hoskins, vice president for pharmaceutical company Marion Merrell Dow Inc., knows the value of friends in high places. In the early '90s, Newt introduced legislation to reduce tariffs on a laxative called lactulose, sold by--you guessed it--Marion Merrell Dow. Believe it or not, this clear coincidence (Newt has probably always had an interest in the international laxative market) sparked rumors of influence-peddling.

Michael Huffington, the failed California senate candidate, can certainly afford to throw GOPAC a few grand now and again. He burned $25 million of his own money in his unsuccessful effort to unseat Dianne Feinstein last year. Of course, the brains (such as they are) behind his wallet belong to his New Age power player wife Arianna (see Paula Poundstone's column, Mother Jones), who sits on the board of the Progress & Freedom Foundation (see ethics charges). When not writing books or praying her husband doesn't say something silly in front of a camera, Arianna spends much of her time kissing up to Newt shamelessly. Her February fund-raising dinner for the conservative National Empowerment Television network (where she used to have a show) made news when word got out that the tab was $50,000-a-plate (napkins and wives free).

Joe Allegra, former president of T2 Medical Inc., has had his share of legal troubles. In 1992, while Allegra was president and CEO of T2, the Department of Health and Human Services launched a federal grand jury investigation into its physician self-referral practices (see "Double-dipping Doctors", Mother Jones). The company had to cough up $500,000 to settle the score. T2 has also had problems with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for--oops!--inflating quarterly earnings reports.

Dan Evins, head of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain, knows how to live up to the company name. In 1991, Cracker Barrel issued a company policy stating it would no longer employ people "whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values which have been the foundation of families in America." The company proceeded to fire several gay employees. A notice issued to one of them said, "This employee is being terminated due to violation of company policy. The employee is gay."

Carl Lindner, who rounds out our list, is chair of the American Finance Corporation, and a former business partner of S&L human torch Charles Keating. Lindner was not on the list of 150 major donors leaked to us because he is only a recent convert to Newtonian thinking (as of July 1994, he was Bill Clinton's single biggest donor). But when he jumps on a wagon, you can hear the axles screech. After the November election, Lindner wasted no time sending GOPAC a $55,000 check. You would too if you were the chair and CEO of Chiquita Brands International Inc., and you needed political cover from a lawsuit alleging your company sterilized 16,000 farmers in 12 countries by using the pesticide DBCP. The much-maligned Lindner has also had to settle two sets of fraud charges with that ever-critical SEC.

Lindner is the first addition to our original list of 150 donors, but we plan to continue adding donors until we have a clear idea of who's funding Newt--and why. If you know of others on Newt's money team, or have more information on the ones listed, let us know.