Bush pardons: Texas, Florida and more

by Mark Silva

President Bush has been sparing in the exercise of his pardon power, but more of his clemency - 157 pardons and six commutations of sentences - has gone to convicts in his home state of Texas and his younger brother's home state of Florida than to those in any other states.

P.S. Ruckman Jr., a professor of political science at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Ill., who keeps track of all matters of clemency, also has found that eight of the top-10 states on Bush's list of pardons and commutations are "red states'' in the political calculus of presidential votes.

Now, it's difficult to see where pardoning criminals might enhance a president's reputation or party's chances in any one state. And the most famous of Bush's pardons, the commutation of prison time for Lewis "Scooter'' Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff convicted of obstruction of justice in the federal investigation of the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent whose husband had debunked one of the Bush administration's contentions for the invasion of Iraq, is a District of Columbia case.

So it's probably just a matter of population - Texas, home state of the former governor who was elected to the White House in 2000, and Florida, home state of the former governor, Jeb Bush, elected in 1998 and 2002, are big states, and they have a lot of criminals - that Ruckman's review of the presidential pardon power has turned up this accounting of Bush's pardons and commutations.

(But, then, the two biggest states of all, California and New York, have a good share of criminals as well, and they are decidedly blue states, and look where they sit on the list. And, then, as Ruckman has found, presidents grow most generous with their pardons at the ends of their terms, so Bush still has time to balance out the map).

This is the count, so far:

The president's acts of clemency:

17 - Texas

14 - Florida

10 - Georgia

8 - California, South Carolina

6 - Arkansas, Washington

5 - Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin

4 - Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania

3 - Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Mexico

2 - Alabama, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Rhode
Island, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia

1 - Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Dakota,
New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Vermont

(Pardons and commutations were also granted to one U.S. Army soldier, one resident of the District of Columbia, and another individual from the District of Puerto Rico)

Source: Pardonpower.com