Lay maintained business and political ties to Republican goverment officials, hiring (for example) James Baker and Robert Mosbacher as they left the Cabinet of President George H. W. Bush (both men lobbied for Enron contracts in the wake of the First Gulf War). Lay was a supporter of current president George W. Bush for Governor of Texas; in 1999, Bush signed a law deregulating Texas electric markets.[2] Bush carried on an extensive personal correspondence with Lay [3] and Bush is reputed to have given Lay the personal nickname "Kenny Boy". [4] [5]
A Bush Pioneer, Lay became one of the largest individual contributors to the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign: his donation history shows $651,760 to Republicans, $61,960 to Democrats, and $62,150 to special interests.[6] Lay allowed Bush and Cheney to use his personal Enron jet for transportation during their 2000 election campaign, and served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Advisory Committee. According to Kurt Eichenwald's book Conspiracy of Fools, he was nearly selected to be Secretary of the Treasury following Bush's victory in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Ultimately Paul O'Neill was chosen for the position instead.