Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has madeĀ no secret of his pro-business agenda since taking office in January. It comes the as little surprise, then, that his 2010 campaign was backed largely by industries he now supports.
Data obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics from the Federal Elections Commission shows thatĀ Rubio was the largest recipient of Koch Industries campaign money for U.S. Senate races in 2010. He also received more money than anyone running for national office outside of Kansas, where Koch Industries is headquartered. FloridaĀ is home to a major Georgia-Pacific paper mill (Georgia-Pacific is a subsidiary of Koch Industries) that has been at theĀ center of a major battle between Koch industries and environmental regulators.
Many of Rubioās other campaign donors have connections to the Koch brothers. Some are more closely affiliated with the Kochs than others, but all those with ties are plugged into the national network of business leaders and anti-tax and anti-regulation advocates that Charles and David Koch haveĀ endeavored to build through conferences and think tanks.
The largest single contributor to Rubioās campaign by far was the economic libertarian organization Club for Growth, whose members gave $346,450. Club for Growth has hadĀ ties to the Kochs since its founding in 1999. One of the groupās directors, Howard Rich, is also a director of the Cato Institute, a think tank that Charles Koch provided the initial funding for and on whose board of directors David Koch now sits.
Elliott Management, the Senate Conservatives Fund, Flo-Sun, Inc. and Koch Industries itself round out the list of the top five contributors to Rubioās campaign. Elliott Management is a hedge fund management company run by Paul Singer, an investment banker who chairs the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tankĀ underwritten in part by the Koch Family Foundation and its affiliates. The singer has helped MC controversial Manhattan Institute events that Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Antonin Scalia have attended in recent years.
The Senate Conservatives Fund is a campaign fund started by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who has attended Koch-sponsored events and wasĀ given the Washington Award by David Koch in 2009 for ādefending the American dream.ā Koch Industries isĀ one of the top contributors to the Senate Conservatives Fund PAC.
Flo-Sun, meanwhile, is sugar and real estate conglomerate owned by the Fanjul family of South Florida. Flo-Sun, which owns Domino Sugar, has been active in fighting the EPA over water pollution regulations in the Everglades. The Fanjuls are family friends of the Kochs; David Koch and his wife Julia traveled to the Dominican Republic in 2009Ā for the wedding of Christina Fanjul.
Rubioās connections with the vast Koch Industries web did not end with his election. The senatorās chief of staff, Cesar Conda, was once an aide to Dick Cheney and is said to be one of theĀ architects of the Bush tax cuts. He is the former executive director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a libertarian think tank funded in part byĀ Koch-run groups such as the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation.
Kyle Daly reports for The American Independent.