Wal-Mart Competition

Wal-Mart, Walton family support Schwarzenegger

By Jim Hopkins, USA TODAY

One union-backed bill, which Schwarzenegger vetoed early in October, would have forced the state to disclose names of companies whose workers get government health services meant for poor residents.

A second bill, vetoed last year, would have stopped employers from locking workers inside workplaces — a policy Wal-Mart has when employees stock shelves and clean floors after closing hours.

The bills reflect issues creating a public relations nightmare for the USA's biggest private employer, with 1.3 million workers, as it expands in California, the USA's biggest market. Critics including Wake-Up Wal-Mart accuse it of endangering workers by locking them in stores, and of reducing its health care costs at taxpayer expense.

"Tens of thousands of Wal-Mart employees are on taxpayer-funded health care," says Chris Kofinis of union-led Wake-Up Wal-Mart.

The Wal-Mart and Walton political gifts appear in new public campaign finance documents. They show that the same day Schwarzenegger vetoed the health care disclosure bill — Oct. 7 — his California Recovery Team logged a $250,000 gift from Christy Walton. She is the widow of John Walton, a Wal-Mart director who died four months ago. In the next three weeks, the Schwarzenegger-backed Proposition 77 campaign got $250,000 from Wal-Mart Chairman Rob Walton and $100,000 from Wal-Mart. Those gifts and others followed $200,000 to the Recovery Team last year from John Walton about two weeks after Schwarzenegger vetoed the lock-in bill.

Proposition 77, on the Nov. 8 ballot, would give authority to redraw congressional and legislative districts to three retired judges, shifting that power from the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and strengthening the Republican governor's hand.

Schwarzenegger's office and a Walton family spokesman said there was no connection between his vetoes and the Wal-Mart gifts. "Absolutely not," Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson says.

Wal-Mart and the Waltons now rank No. 15 on its list of the 100 biggest donors to Schwarzenegger-controlled campaign committees, says the Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, a non-partisan government watchdog group.

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