Earmarks haunt Nelson’s re-election campaign

With 40 years of successive public service in Tallahassee and on Capitol Hill, the senator has garnered a reputation as a staunch Democratic statesman known as an “authentic hayseed.”

But such a long grip on power also has meant budding relationships with key industries and lobbies that seek representation on the Hill.

As chairman of the Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee and only the second sitting member of Congress to fly on a space mission, Nelson has been the foremost advocate for the federal government’s role in funding space and defense — and industries have taken note.

In his current bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate, Nelson’s largest contributor has so far been Finmeccanica SPA, the aerospace and defense giant partially owned by the Italian government, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics.

The political action committee and lobbyists for Finmeccanica’s U.S. subsidiary, DRS Technologies Inc., based in New Jersey and acquired by the Italian group in 2008, have poured nearly a quarter million dollars — $244,917 — into the senator’s coffers during his 10-year career in the congressional upper chamber.

In 2010, Nelson earmarked $4.5 million to DRS Technologies for electronic components intended for the third-generation Bradley fighting vehicle. It’s used by the U.S. and Saudi Arabian militaries and has been the dominant tank in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the Defense Department.

Nelson acquired a similar $3.5 million earmark for his campaign’s top donor in 2008, funneling federal money to build electro-sensors used in surface-to-air missiles, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog organization dedicated to cutting government spending.

Finmeccanica and its subsidiaries receive more than $1.7 billion in federal defense contracts seeking ways to “penetrate the cybersecurity, defense and homeland security markets,” according to a profile article in Homeland Security magazine.

“At best, earmarks are the trains that drive federal spending — sometimes up to 10 (percent) or 20 percent more than what would have been spent originally,” said former Republican U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, who is running in the GOP Senate primary against U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-District 14.

“At worst, it’s a form of corruption that takes money from the taxpayers to give to favored industries.

“It’s one of the reasons I never personally requested any earmark while in the Senate,” LeMieux told Florida Watchdog.

Mack did not return calls made to his office.

The Florida Watchdog investigation also found that fellow U.S. Rep. Bill Young, of District 10, the longest serving Republican member of Congress, has received $88,550 from DRS Technologies during his career and successfully earmarked more than $11 million for the defense giant in the past four years alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Young’s and Nelson’s offices did not return calls to Florida Watchdog seeking comment.

Finmeccanica, the multinational conglomerate parent company of DRS Technologies, is facing accusations of bribing politicians and money laundering in its home country of Italy, prompting its CEO, Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, to step down in December.

Ansaldo Energia, another subsidiary of Finmeccanica, provided the Iranian government with 44 gas turbines worth $2.1 billion and had plans to build more, only to withdraw from Iran in late 2010 because it was “sensitive to concerns by the U.S. government about companies operating in Iran,” a spokesman told the New York Times.

A 2006 Italian embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks also reveals the company’s interest in supplying communication equipment to Iranian police forces and engineering firms during that time, emphasizing that it was “not engaged in any contracts related to Iranian military activities,” according to the cable.

Though Finmeccanica is Nelson’s largest campaign contributor, Nelson consistently has argued for tougher sanctions on Iran, spearheading and lending his name to more than 10 pieces of legislation to that effect.

After two terms in office, Nelson is no stranger when it comes to messy campaign contributions.

In 2009, Nelson faced similar heat for receiving contributions from the PMA Group, a Washington, D.C.-based defense lobbying firm whose founder and owner, Paul Magliocchetti, is serving 27 months in federal prison for making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions.

During the run for his second term, Nelson was accused by his opponent, Republican Katherine Harris, of accepting $80,000 in illegal contributions from Riscorp Inc., a worker’s compensation insurance business whose founder, Bill Griffin, is also serving a prison sentence for illegal campaign contributions, according to the Tampa Bay Times. State or federal officials never investigated the claims.

In November 2011 he returned $500 in campaign contributions from Ahmed Bedier, an ardent critic of Israel with ties to the Council on American Islamic Relations, America’s largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization, and Muslim Brotherhood, one of the world’s largest Islamist movements. Conservative activists and Jewish voters across the state raised concerns, according to the Miami Herald.

“It is certainly not unusual for groups seeking earmarks to contribute to members who can help them,” said Viveca Novak, editorial and communications director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

She told Florida Watchdog that politicians who become cozy on the Hill are the most vulnerable to industries seeking taxpayer dollars.

“The more experienced politicians get attention from the vested interests and then millions of taxpayer dollars are sent to those same interests — it really is a matter of gamesmanship,” Novak said.

Yael Ossowski covers Florida politics and government for Florida Watchdog, which is owned by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.