Profiles in privilege:
Meet this Egan Orion donor: Wayne Perry of Medina, CEO of Shotgun Creek Investments, staunch opponent of affirmative action
It should come as no surprise that big donors supporting Egan Orion’s campaign against Councilmember Kshama Sawant are also backing a host of right-wing causes, like fighting affirmative action.
Take Wayne Perry of Medina, for instance. Perry is the CEO of Shotgun Creek Investments, a (very private) private-equity investment fund with real estate development projects in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, and Texas.
Last month Perry gave $250 to Orion, according to Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) records. He also gave $4,000 to the “People for Seattle” political action committee that was founded by Amazon director Tom Alberg and Perry’s Medina neighbor billionaire John Stanton, among others, and that was accused of several “misleading” attack ads on progressive candidates including Sawant in the Primary.
In the last five years, Perry has donated generously to a range of federal and state right-wing political candidates and causes, giving more than $140,000 to Conservative Solutions PAC, Marco Rubio’s failed presidential campaign, and Dino Rossi’s failed gubernatorial campaign, among others, according to state PDC and Federal Election Commission reports.
This year, in addition to his Orion contribution, Perry is the one of the top 10 individual donors to the committee fighting affirmative action. In July, Perry gave $10,000 to the anti-Referendum 88/Initiative 1000 campaign. Initiative 1000 would restore fairness and opportunity to Washington’s public employment, contracting, and education enrollment policies.
In addition to fighting affirmative action, Perry, who lives in a $12 million waterfront mansion in Medina according to King County Assessor records, apparently also believes that the super-wealthy shouldn’t have to pay their fair share of taxes. A decade ago, Perry was a major funder — to the tune of $20,000 — of the campaign that defeated Initiative 1098, which would have instituted a high-earners tax in Washington state to fund education and healthcare services.
Just a guess here: likely he’s also against rent control!
Jonathan Rosenblum is the author of Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement (Beacon Press, 2017), and is a member of the National Writers Union/UAW 1981. He is a community organizer in the Office of Councilmember Kshama Sawant, and wrote this article in a personal capacity.
