AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott has opened his official state residence to political allies, business leaders, presidential hopefuls, educators, musicians and lawmakers of both parties for numerous receptions and meetings.

But the guests who get the rarer, highly prized invitations for dinner at the Governor’s Mansion often have something in common. Many are donors who have funded Abbott’s political rise and are seen as crucial to Republicans’ future.

Of 16 dinners at the Greek Revival-style mansion that were detailed in records examined by the San Antonio Express-News, 13 included donors who together have given Abbott some $15 million since 2000.

The tally may be higher because mansion records provided by the governor’s office were incomplete.

Among those listed as dinner guests were Bruce Bugg, chairman of the Bank of San Antonio who was appointed by Abbott to the Texas Transportation Commission, and NuStar Energy Chairman William Greehey.

Most of the dinners with donors were fairly intimate affairs, with the guest list ranging from one couple to 13 people. Their political contributions have ranged from $150 to more than $1 million, with the majority giving in the six-figure range.

Some dinner guests spoke to the Express-News of friendly, warm evenings untouched by political talk. Such get-togethers, however, are about more than giving powerbrokers a chance to press a specific case.

“It’s access,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, which tracks the influence of money in politics. “Lobbying and getting favors is about access and personal relationships, and this helps strengthen a personal relationship.”

Such access isn’t unusual at the state or national level, and it has put officeholders from both parties in the spotlight. Bill and Hillary Clinton came under particular fire over Democratic donors staying in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House in the 1990s.

“This is the way politics works,” McDonald said. “The big donors get the special perks. … This is business as usual that is beneficial to the politicians and to their suitors and their supporters.”

Even some Democrats didn’t raise an eyebrow at the Republican governor’s dinner guest list, including one with firsthand knowledge of extending Governor’s Mansion invitations.

“I didn’t check the donor list before we invited anybody. I’m sure I had a lot of donors over there, too,” former Gov. Mark White said. “They were friends, or there was some business reason for them to come over there. … It’s a useful tool for the governor to bring people together and get them to help on projects.”

Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, is less accepting.

“The Texas Governor’s Mansion isn’t just a symbol of our state’s history, it is a place that all Texans can claim as their own. Unfortunately, Gov. Abbott has treated this iconic residence as a perk for high-powered political donors,” Garcia said.

Asked about donor access and how the governor chooses whom to invite to the mansion, Abbott’s staff provided written comments emphasizing the wide range of events that include numerous guests and encompass far more than dinners. A request to interview Abbott’s chief of staff, Daniel Hodge, was denied.

“The records show that the overwhelming majority of the thousands of guests that the governor and first lady have welcomed to the mansion have not contributed a penny to his campaign,” said Abbott spokesman John Wittman. “Gov. Abbott and the first lady are honored to have the opportunity to reside in the Texas Governor’s Mansion and open their home to, and share its rich history with, those it belongs to: the people of Texas.”

Valuable face time

By the governor’s office count, the number of mansion happenings has been close to 250 when including meetings, lunches, receptions that may include several hundred people, news conferences and events such as Easter egg rolls and a 109th birthday celebration for Richard Overton, the oldest known living World War II combat veteran in the United States. The number doesn’t include public tours, which have been expanded to Saturdays under the Abbotts.

Besides a variety of receptions — such as those celebrating the 2015 teacher of the year, meeting with media, saluting Texas music and recognizing the Girl Scouts — the mansion has been the scene of lunches or meetings with top business leaders and officials from other countries. Former first lady Linda Gale White requested and got a meeting with current first lady Cecilia Abbott to discuss the Communities in Schools dropout-prevention program.

Democratic as well as Republican lawmakers were invited to luncheons last year to talk about legislative issues or just get better acquainted.

“Having a lunch like that, people let their hair down. People are less guarded, and people feel less inclined to be formal, and so at our lunch there was a lot of laughter, and I made fun of myself and others made fun of me. ... And that’s OK, because it’s part of developing friendships and relationships with people,” said Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin.

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, called it “high-quality time.”

Abbott doesn’t raise political money at the mansion. But there have been events with a political air besides the dinners with donors, such as Texans for Greg Abbott, grass-roots and conservative group receptions. He also has met there with his political advisers and campaign staff. He doesn’t have donors as overnight guests, according to his office.

Mansion operations are supported with state funds of nearly $750,000 a year, but Abbott’s campaign and other funding sources cover event costs such as food and beverages, according to his office.

The state money includes $524,589 a year that is spent through the governor’s office, much of which pays for mansion staff, according to his office. The State Preservation Board budgets $225,380 for items including maintenance and grounds-keeping.

In addition, Abbott’s campaign has paid about $100,000 for mansion expenses, according to a ballpark estimate provided by the governor’s office. An additional $40,000 has been funneled through a separate fund that allows groups with mansion events to cover their cost. In addition, the Friends of the Governor’s Mansion pays for expenses such as maintenance of historic items, spending between $8,000 and $9,000 in 2014.

Abbott pays for personal costs, according to his office.

The exact number of events couldn’t be determined because numerous dates in the first half of 2015 were missing from the records provided by Abbott’s office in response to a request under the Texas Public Information Act. Among them were dates in July that covered a meeting and dinner with then-Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary José Antonio Meade Kuribreña.

Abbott’s staff said all the records that could be located were provided.

Not all politics

Despite the breadth of mansion doings, dinners are acknowledged to be a particularly choice invitation.

“Dinner, by definition, is more intimate,” said high-profile lobbyist and consultant Bill Miller, a dinner guest last August with his wife and daughter.

Miller doesn’t appear as an Abbott donor in campaign reports, but his firm’s political action committee has chalked up more than $242,000 for Abbott since 2000. That’s the year before Abbott resigned from the Texas Supreme Court to run for attorney general, an office in which he served before taking office as governor in January 2015.

Miller said the agenda at the dinner he attended was distinctly personal. The Millers’ daughter attends the California university where the Abbotts’ daughter headed last year. The get-together gave the girls and their parents a chance to talk about what the freshman could expect.

“People who are not in the business think that all I do is talk politics all day long with everybody I run into. … They would not believe that I’m sitting around with the governor and not talking politics,” said Miller, who has long known Abbott. “But the truth is when we were there that night, it never came up. We never talked politics at all. It was all family and kids and schools and the stuff that you talk about in regular life.”

Abbott donor Harlan Stai said the same was true when he and his wife, Dian Graves Stai, dined at the mansion. The two, who are retired from Owen Healthcare, have donated more than $400,000 to Abbott, according to campaign finance records.

“It was nothing political at all. It was just a nice evening,” Stai said. “It was like going to dinner with your brother and his wife.”

Not every dinner guest detailed in the records was a donor. One dinner featured Nobel laureates. At another, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and his wife, Ann, had dinner there but aren’t found as Abbott donors in campaign records.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a longtime Abbott ally who doesn’t appear as a campaign contributor, attended a mansion dinner that also included donors the month before he launched his presidential bid last year.

The biggest donors on the dinner guest list, according to records provided, are Fort Worth businessman Robert Albritton and his wife, Mary Louise, who have given more than $1 million to Abbott. Albritton also is an Abbott appointee to the Texas A&M University System board of regents — like Bugg, one of a number of dinner guests who are appointees as well as donors.

But even donors who make smaller donations have much more to offer than money, such as influential evangelist David Barton, listed as a mansion dinner guest with fracking billionaire Daniel Wilks and their wives. Dan Wilks and his brother, Farris, are becoming known as important GOP donors.

“The Wilks brothers together have the potential to be very active actors in state politics,” said Rice University political scientist Mark P. Jones. “The potential has been raised that they could become the next Bob Perry,” the late GOP mega-donor.

Ray Sullivan, a lobbyist who worked for former Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry, called the mansion a valuable tool on a number of levels. Bush’s first presidential campaign famously began with a front-porch strategy in which notables visited him at the mansion.

“The Governor’s Mansion is a special invitation,” said Sullivan, who was pleased when an introductory meeting he had requested for Calpine Corp. CEO John B. “Thad” Hill was scheduled at the “spectacular” historic home.

“I think it is an asset not only to the state but to the governor,” Sullivan said. “As a senior staffer for two governors, it is an asset that should be used to benefit the state and can be used to benefit the occupant through high-level meetings and conversations and events.”

Democratic consultant Harold Cook, who worked with former Gov. Ann Richards’ gubernatorial campaigns, said donors were among the range of people she invited to the mansion while in office.

“People are going to invite people over based on how comfortable they are with them, and obviously big givers are going to have a pre-existing personal relationship with whoever they give to, or they wouldn’t be giving,” Cook said. “And that’s a little different than buying access. …. It’s natural to invite over people you know. It’s natural to invite over people you think are interesting.

“The Governor’s Mansion is a perk of the office. People are honored to be invited. People are honored to go. Why in the world wouldn’t you make your allies feel that way? That’s just good politics,” Cook said, quipping, “I am positive that my invitation has merely been lost in the mail.”