More "Cesspool" Involving Leonard Lawson Who "Graduated From A Religious Mission School". Sure Makes You NOT Want To Attend Church Today, Doesn' It?

On the road to power: A profile of Leonard Lawson
By John Cheves
jcheves@herald-leader.com

Editors Note: This story was first published in the Lexington Herald-Leader on Aug. 21, 2005. Many of Leonard Lawson's business holdings have since changed, but he remains one of the state's top road contractors.

Leonard Lawson grew up poor in southeastern Kentucky, plowing his neighbors’ fields for $1 a day, plus feed for his horse.

Today, as Kentucky’s top road builder, he is one of the wealthiest and most politically influential men in the state.Of $3.5 billion awarded for state road projects since 2000, nearly one-fourth have gone to companies Lawson owns or has an interest in. And that’s just part of his business.

When Lawson wants a road, governors try to fund it. Kentucky ranked last among the states in school spending in a recent survey, but it placed 14th in highway spending.

When Lawson wants a law, legislators labor mightily to comply. The overweight gravel truck bill in this year’s General Assembly -- which would have authorized 60-ton loads, up 50 percent from the current limit -- was backed by Lawson and hotly opposed by nearly everyone else. It almost passed.

It doesn’t matter who runs Frankfort, Democrats or Republicans, because he holds sway over both.

“I’ve been involved in statewide races since 1960, and Leonard Lawson is the most powerful political figure I’ve seen in all that time,” said Larry Forgy, the Republican nominee for governor in 1995. Forgy barely lost to Gov. Paul Patton, and Lawson raised or gave nearly $50,000 for Patton’s campaign. Lawson’s companies won hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts under Patton.

“Forget the governors and senators,” Forgy said. “He sups at that front table where it’s decided who the governors and senators will be.”

50 times more

Lawson dislikes the spotlight.

But the self-made millionaire smiled tightly this spring as Gov. Ernie Fletcher and U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, both Republicans, and Patton, the Democratic former governor, heaped praise on him. The politicians had come to Pine Mountain in Letcher County to cut the ribbon for a $50 million road and flatter their friend who built it.

Each of them had benefited from the roughly half-million dollars in political donations made in recent years by Lawson, his family and employees. They, in turn, poured tax money into paving and repaving roads -- including these 7 miles of U.S. 119, which now has softer curves, truck lanes and scenic overlooks.

One of Lawson’s companies won that contract in 2001 for $1 million. After the ink dried, Patton, Rogers and Fletcher added $49 million more in state and federal funds for changes such as adding lanes or dealing with rock slides. There was no additional competitive bidding.

It was a great deal for Lawson, the latest in a series that is likely to continue.

In the past, Lawson, a registered Democrat, was closest to politicians in his own party. Democrats ran Kentucky. And everyone knew that Patton was his personal friend and benefactor.

But Lawson adeptly shifted his political giving to Republicans as Kentucky switched to GOP control. Few noticed that Fletcher chose Sam Beverage, a veteran of Lawson’s payroll, to be his state highway engineer. In that position, the Transportation Cabinet’s No. 3 job, Beverage oversees road projects.

At the Pine Mountain ribbon-cutting ceremony in April, Lawson gave a short, awkward speech and endorsed Fletcher for re-election in 2007. It was Fletcher, he said, who sank the final $11 million into U.S. 119.

“Fletcher didn’t have to be talked into doing what he did for Pine Mountain,” Lawson drawled in a deep monotone. “He did it because it was the right thing to do.”

The truth is this, Forgy said later: Fletcher knows that pleasing Lawson is required for holding office in Kentucky, no less than taking the constitutional oath.

A shy man

Lawson, who is 66, was born and raised in Beverly, a tiny community isolated in the woods of Bell County.

He graduated from a religious mission school that -- in his words -- “mostly just kept us busy in church, so we didn’t get into trouble.”

Fifty years later, he remains painfully aware of his rough grammar and vocabulary, although he has colorfully colloquial speech. (When puzzled, he snaps, “That don’t pencil!”) A shy man, he tries to skip public events.

“I know what I want to say, but it’s hard to get it out sometimes,” he said during a rare, recent interview at the Lexington headquarters of The Mountain Companies.

The company is an umbrella for Lawson’s businesses. He has acquired them since 1971, the year he bought out his boss at a Bowling Green road-building firm. They include Mountain Enterprises, which makes, sells and lays down asphalt; Bizzack, which rips into mountains and moves dirt; and rock quarries that provide pavement materials.

Lawson is chairman. His only child, Steve Lawson, 40, is president.

During warm summer months, the company employs more than 2,000 people in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. Its average revenue, about $400 million a year, is slightly greater than Lexington’s budget.

Like many self-made men, Lawson is remarkably insecure, braced for someone to take it all away. If he thinks he is criticized unfairly, he says his accuser is a big-city snob looking down on “a poor mountain boy.”

In reality, he and Bonnie, his wife of 46 years, divide their time between a $2 million home in Naples, Fla., and a $12 million horse farm on Winchester Road in Lexington.

They have publicly given away several million dollars, helping to create the Leonard Lawson Cancer Center in Pikeville and funding programs at the University of Kentucky and Pikeville College. Anonymously, acting through his non-profit Mountain Foundation, Lawson’s family gave $500,000 to build a dining hall at Lexington’s private Sayre School in honor of Justin Robins, an 11-year-old student who died in 2001.

Lawson’s grandchildren attend the Sayre School.

“That was completely unexpected, and it meant the world to us,” recalled Dave Robins, Justin’s father, his voice choking years after the fact. “I understand they’re controversial. But the Lawson family has done a tremendous amount for me and my family.”

Political influence

Less charitably, in election years, politicians battle for Lawson’s support. For good reason: It comes with campaign donations from his family and employees, even bigger money from his fund-raisers and a network of political influence in Eastern Kentucky.

Ben Chandler, running in the 2003 Democratic primary for governor, openly boasted that he bagged Lawson’s endorsement. Chandler’s crestfallen opponents said they wouldn’t believe that until they heard it from Lawson. It was true, although Lawson characteristically said nothing publicly.

“If he’s for you, that’s something significant,” said Danny Briscoe, a Louisville political consultant.

Likewise, candidates whom Lawson has opposed say it’s a bad day for you when he throws his arm around your rival.

“I do what I do 100 percent,” Lawson explained. “If I’m for you, I’m for you. And if I’m against you, I’m against you.”

Lawson cultivates governors, congressmen, state legislators and county judges. He invests in their personal businesses; for example, he bought the land for his Lexington office from then-Gov. Wallace Wilkinson. Some, like Attorney General Greg Stumbo, have gotten drunk at his Christmas parties at the Landmark Inn in Pikeville. (Stumbo was charged with drunken driving after one such party in 1991.)

Stumbo, formerly the state House majority floor leader, received contributions of at least $18,000 from Lawson’s family and employees since 1998.

“In all the years I was in the legislature -- and I’ll swear this on a stack of Bibles -- he never asked me to do anything or vote in a particular way, other than he always wants us to build more roads in the mountains,” Stumbo said.

“Well, that and workers’ comp reform. He did lobby me for workers’ comp reform, because Paul Patton asked him to,” Stumbo said. “And the gas tax. He always wanted a hike in the gas tax.”