Seven of 10 Enron Committee Members Received Money From Company

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Seven out of 10 members of a legislative committee investigating Florida's pension fund losses in the Enron scandal have received campaign contributions from the company or one of its subsidiaries.

Committee members say the contributions - all coming before the energy-trading company's collapse - won't prevent them from aggressively scrutinizing the impact of Enron on the state and its retirees.

Many said they didn't know they had gotten Enron money, and some say their focus isn't on Enron anyway, but the workings of the agency that invests state money and on Alliance Capital Management, the money manager that bought Enron stock for the pension fund.

The retirement fund lost $325 million when it was forced to dump 7.5 million Enron shares as the company plunged toward bankruptcy and its stock price dropped. It was the largest loss of any state pension fund.

Florida's fund is one of several pursuing legal action against Enron to try to recoup their losses. State workers will not lose any money because the pension fund guarantees benefits to pensioners.

Rep. Fred Brummer, who received a total of $1,500 in 1999 and 2000 from Enron subsidiary Florida Gas Transmission, said he often gets money from companies that want something - and ignores it. And looking into Enron will be no different, he said.

"If any contribution prohibits you from doing your job as a state legislator you need to go home," said Brummer, R-Apopka. "You don't need to be up here if you can be bought and sold."

Rep. Dennis Ross agreed, saying he doesn't think campaign contributions buy anything. Ross got three $500 checks in 2000 from Florida Gas Transmission, which operates the only natural gas pipeline to South Florida.

"Nobody's ever come to me and said, 'Hey we gave you that contribution, you sure you want to do this?'" Ross said. Still, Ross, R-Lakeland, said he is returning the money to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

Some supporters of campaign finance reform say the fact that a committee conducting an investigation involving a company that has given $9,000 to members of the committee over the years illustrates a larger question about companies attempting to buy influence in government with contributions that are legal.

"It points to the whole problem of why we need to reform the campaign financing system," said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause of Florida. "They're obviously hoping for some kind of access and influence somewhere." Congress is in a similar situation, but on a much larger scale.

Members of the seven congressional panels investigating Enron's collapse have gotten more than $700,000 in campaign donations from Enron.

But with Enron now under the spotlight in the biggest business scandal in recent history, no amount of contributions is likely to make lawmakers go easy, said Larry Makinson, senior fellow at the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington campaign finance watchdog group.

"I don't think the money's going to help them out now," he said. But it points further to the reach the company had into Florida government - and the political world in general.

"Enron is really a magnifying glass into the way politics is conducted in this country," Makinson said. "Lawmakers get this kind of money all the time."

If House Speaker Tom Feeney wanted to appoint a committee immune from Enron money to look into the impact of the company's fall on Florida, he would have had a hard time.

At least 73 of the 120 members of the House have gotten money from Enron or Florida Gas Transmission. Among those is Rep. Mark Flanagan, chairman of the pension oversight committee.

Enron and Florida Gas Transmission have contributed $2,000 to Flanagan, R-Bradenton, although most contributions were in the mid-1990s and the last donation was back in 2000. Feeney, R-Oviedo, received $1,000 from Enron in 1996 and $1,500 from Florida Gas Transmission in 1999 and 2000.

Flanagan said Tuesday that Florida's contribution limit of $500 per election means that no one company can have undue influence on any lawmaker.

"There is no conflict of interest," he said. "No contributor can buy any influence with that amount."

The company and its executives have also given money to the campaigns of Gov. Jeb Bush, who received $500 from Florida Gas Transmission in 1997 and $1,000 from former Enron chairman Ken Lay and his wife the same year. Bush also was invested in a pipeline company in the mid-1990s that was a subsidiary of Enron.

While the company hasn't talked much about what it hoped to gain with its campaign contributions in Florida, it pushed hard for deregulation of the energy markets in several states.

Enron officials testified frequently in favor of deregulation before state and federal governmental bodies. Lay once wrote President Bush when he was governor of Texas to push for deregulation. And deregulation supporters acknowledged that the company gave more money to politicians in support of the idea than anyone else. That was what Brummer assumed. "I thought it was about deregulation," he said.

But in Florida Enron quietly pushed for the idea, letting other companies take the lead. And so far, the Florida Legislature has resisted deregulation.

And Brummer said the company gave money in other states where deregulation wasn't on the agenda. "It turned out they just (gave money) in every state and county in the country."

While the Enron "big show" runs in DC, Florida has its own little sideshow of how one of their pension fund managers lost $325 million betting on Enron. They have learned that a Mr. Frank Savage, one of the executives of Alliance Capital Management, the financial adviser that lost the big bucks, served at the same time on the Enron board of directors. The Florida Attorney General has served Enron and Alliance with subpoenas looking into this connection.

See also Enron Stock Buy Vexes Enron, where I posted the lost list of Democratic Party donations made by Mr. Savage I researched on the website www.opensecrets.org.

Interesting scenario here:

ENRON, Huston Texas corp. (George W. Bush former Gov.)

ENRON Florida State,$325 million (largest state loss) (Jeb Bush, Gov.)

You may want to double check this info if you have time Uncle Bill,(info sent to me by a friend).

Nothing like one big happy family !!!!!!

Camille Chebeir was with Citicorp (merged with Travelers to form Citigroup) and Frank Savage a director at Enron was with Citibank in the middle East.

They are a very interesting group.

I have heard that the Saudis are large stockholders in Citibank.

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