The Talent for Senate committee has taken contributions from 11 different executives of UniGroup, Inc., a $2B Missouri-based federal contractor whose biggest client is the Department of Defense.

Because Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees defense funding and procurement, the contributions violate Senate ethics guidelines and, potentially, campaign finance laws that prohibit candidates from accepting donations by persons performing contract work with the federal government.

UniGroup’s current president has personally donated over $4000 to the Senator’s campaigns, including $500 on 12/20/2001 while Talent was registered  with Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, and Kahn as a lobbyist for his company.

NOTE: I thought I posted this at 7:00 a.m., but I missed a few bad tags because I was still awake, not just awake. :-). Sorry to all the good folks here.

TALENT has received almost $30,000 during this election cycle from UniGroup executives and affiliated PACS, United Van Lines Political Action Committee and Mayflower Political Action Committee.

UniGroup Inc., is the parent company of United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit, two of the largest interstate transportation companies in the country.

UniGroup’s president Richard McClure and his wife Sharon Buchanan-McClure donated $4000 to Talent’s principal campaign committee in three separate transactions on 3/31 and 5/24/2005. As president of UniGroup, McClure is also CEO of all its subsidiaries.

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SENATE ETHICS & GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS

According to the Senate Ethics Manual, “contributions may not be accepted from federal government contractors” by members or candidates for office. And though the legal aspects and consequences are murky, the statutes and guidelines are intended to deter a system where federal contracts are awarded on a “pay to play” basis.

While a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Talent sat on the Subcommittee on Military Procurement of the House Committee on National Security.

During that period, his failed MO gubernatorial bid in 2000, and the run-up to his 2002 election to the U.S. Senate, Talent received more than $10,000 in additional contributions from McClure and UniGroup sources.

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UNIGROUP’S WINDFALL

UniGroup and 4 of its subsidiaries have received in excess of $15M in federal contracts since Talent was elected to Congress, according the publicly searchable Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). However, the exact amount is almost certainly much higher.

The FPDS has 43 different contractors listed at what amount to the same address in Fenton, MO: One Premier Dr., One United Dr., One Mayflower Dr., or One WorldWide Dr.

UniGroup has financial interests in all 43; at the time this story was written only a few had been checked for their status as federal contractors.

However, in addition to United Van Lines (~$500,000) and Mayflower Transit (~$325,000), UniGroup’s Primacy Relocation has received an open-ended GSA contract worth $2.2M so far.

And as the U.S. fights wars in two countries, UniGroup’s Military Transportation Movers, LLC — located at One United Dr. — has earned $12.5M from the Department of Defense.

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QUID PRO QUO

Rich McClure has been called “the most influential figure in the [moving] industry.” John “Woody” Cozad, the former chairman of the MO GOP told the St. Louis Business Journal that both Talent and fellow Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) seek the “advice” of UniGroup’s president on transportation policy issues.

The article, entitled “Rich McClure: Man on the move,” also casually relays a grim example of what McClure expects — and gets — from the politicians he supports:

“[Last] summer, Congress passed a law that gave states and consumer agencies broader jurisdictions to go after fraud by interstate household moving companies. UniGroup…didn’t like it. So McClure called U.S. Sen. Kit Bond.

“By the end of November, the new rules were muzzled. Bond used his position as manager of the Senate’s transportation budget bill to water down the provisions, designed in response to increased consumer complaints against movers…

“…[fellow Republican Sen. Trent] Lott was reported as describing the scaled-back provisions as the ‘Leave the Victims of Unscrupulous Moving Companies Behind Act.’

“McClure and UniGroup saw it as a victory in their efforts to keep consumer protections against unscrupulous movers from hurting the upstanding companies in their highly regulated industry. “There’s a reason why you don’t have 50 different jurisdictions: You have federal regulation of the interstate transportation industry,” McClure said. “Kit did a cleanup of that when we got to the appropriations bill.”

And McClure himself is political insider. He was John Ashcroft’s Chief of Staff for both his terms as MO governor, and until recently McClure’s older brother Ken held the same position with current Gov. Matt Blunt, the son of U.S. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt.

The McClures and Blunts have been family friends for two decades and have extensive mutual political and business connections.

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HIGH-PRICED TALENT

Sen. Talent’s ties to lobbying are both deep and personal. In 2001, Talent himself worked for Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, and Kahn, registered as a lobbyist on behalf of UniGroup. Although he has denied any direct contact with the moving giant during this time, Talent worked “about two days a week” for less than a year and was paid $320,000.[1]

Talent’s lobbying for Arent, Fox ended effective Dec. 31, 2001.[2] However McClure, then the head of United Van Lines, contributed $500 to Talent for Senate on Dec. 20, 2001, before Talent’s registration had expired.

Jennifer Woodbury, a lawyer on his congressional staff, was also hired with Talent by Arent, Fox. Woodbury left the firm with Talent in 2002 only to later be brought on as his Deputy Campaign Manager. Woodbury is also a board member on the Senator’s campaign committee that accepted contributions from UniGroup executives they had both previously represented.

In May of 2002, yet another former staff member of Talent’s began lobbying for the transportation industry. In the House, Mike McLaughlin was Talent’s legislative director and counsel for the House Committee on Small Business on which Talent served as ranking member.

In 2003, McLaughlin registered  with Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti to lobby for the American Moving and Storage Association (AMSA), whose MOVEPAC has contributed over $7000 to Talent’s various election committees.

AMSA president Joe Harrison, in “Rich McClure: Man on the move,” is quoted as saying “(McClure and UniGroup) are quite active and influential. They take a major role here at the association in terms of our governing bodies and policies.”

Closer to home, in March of 2004, Talent’s wife Brenda returned to the lobbying firm Bryan Cave, where she had previously been a partner. Though not a lobbyist herself, the connection has helped swell Talent’s war chest significantly.

Bryan Cave’s employees and PAC have given over $125,000 to the Senator since 2001, his biggest single contributor, exceeding even perennial rainmakers Anheuser-Busch by almost $15,000.

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Special thanks to Kfred and WanderIndiana for their help with this story.

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SOURCES

  1. Columbia Daily Tribune (MO). Talent joins D.C. law firm. March 11, 2001.
  2. Kansas City Star (MO). Part-time jobs paid Talent $320,000, Democrats wary; he sees no problem. March 17, 2002

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