FITSNews Exclusive – Congressman Took Campaign Cash From Developer
BAD, HENRY BROWN, BAD
FITSNews – August 20, 2008 – We were more than a little suspicious after reading Tony Bartelme’s story in the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier the other day about U.S. Rep. Henry Brown (old dude, above ).
Aside from the fact that Brown thinks we should subsidize flood insurance for rich people who want to build homes on pristine barrier islands, something about the Congressman’s professed ignorance of Leonard Long – a developer pushing to build those very homes on our own Kiawah Island – struck us as disingenuous …
Asked whether Long had approached him about the bill, Brown replied, “Who’s Leonard Long?”
Hmmmm … as it turns out, old Henry probably should’ve checked his list of financial contributors prior to experiencing this convenient senior moment, because Leonard Long (of Kiawah Resort Associates, in case you were wondering) gave Brown’s campaign a $1,000 contribution on June 2 of this year – less than three weeks before the Congressman introduced his controversial bill to force taxpayers to foot the bill for flood insurance.
That sure sounds like your typical Washington D.C. “pay-to-play” scam to us, despite Brown’s now highly-questionable claims that he has no “personal agenda” in the matter and “had no idea there was a developer” involved with the issue.
Brown is already in deep doo locally over the proposed bill, but we suspect the revelation that he took money from a guy with such a direct stake in his legislation – and then tried to play dumb about it – will end up putting him further on the defensive … as it should.
Comments
By Jim Cantore on August 20th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Heckuva job Brownie!
Would someone vote this joker our of office please?
By Stroker Ace on August 20th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I would be careful saying he took cash though, as that is illegal. While what he did may not pass the smell test, it was legit.
By confused on August 20th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
hold the phone! $1000 whole dollars?!?!
i’m all for calling out a rat, but $1000 is simply just not enough money for anyone to do anything in d.c. particularly 3 weeks before.
surely the writers of this esteemed blog have been around long enough to know that one donor at below the max indiv. level isn’t going to blow someone’s skirt up, particularly when that paltry donation took place three weeks before he did anything. if he’d given $10,000 to Brown’s PAC three DAYS before the bill dropped, maybe i’d see it. but this one seems like a reach to me, boys and girls.
By jed on August 20th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I think the message isn’t that $1k isn’t enough to influence something like this, it’s that Henry Brown can be had on the cheap. Of course I suspect if you did some more digging, you’d find that this wasn’t an isolated contribution and that other people out there were also filling the coffers over the years.
What I want to see is the photo (i’m sure there are dozens) of Brown and Long out on the course giggling like little school girls. Surely a man of Sic’s resources can dig that shot up.
By Negatron on August 20th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Ooh, a whole thousand? He sure wouldn’t want to miss THAT gravy train!
By Time for Brown to leave Washington on August 20th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Henry Brown is the poster child of our typical big spending Bush loving pseudo Republican .
He stands for getting re-elected and deficit spending.
The folks on Kiawah can afford regular non subsidized home insurance or they can live somewhere else.
Please join me in voting Henry Brown out of office this election.
By James on August 20th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Y’all are missing the, um, “point” of the story, i.e., GREAT photo of the Congressional Sandwich…Brownie may have needed a longer tie had the photographer asked for more shots!
By Stratton Lawrence on August 20th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I looked into this last week and didn’t draw a direct connection between Kiawah Island Development Partners and Kiawah Resorts. Obviously they work hand in hand, but they share no board members and Leonard Long has never sat on the board or been employed by Kiawah Resorts. So I’m not sure this connection can be drawn.
BUT.. I have not seen the June 2 contribution disclosure. It’s not on the Federal Election Commission’s site – their online record has not been updated past 5/21. Where did you see that? I looked into it initially because of a $12,000 donation in 2003 from Kiawah Resorts to Brown’s fundraising golf tournament.
Let me know if you don’t mind.
Stratton Lawrence
Staff Writer – Charleston City Paper
stratton@charlestoncitypaper.com
By aaaa on August 20th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Check the Board of Directors of teh Kiawah Natural Habitat Conservancy… cross reference the “new” board member, who is a partner in Kiawah Development partners. Then check the the “grant” of 1 million to The Kiawah natural Habitat Conservancy Inc and the puchase of the developers property just outside the gate of Kiawah. Perhaps another cross reference would be the Corporate partners of Kiawah Resorts, Kiawah Nature, Kiawah Development. Multi-layers. It stinks… may even be legal because of the multiple layers, but he didn;t know?
By aaaa on August 20th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Kiawah Development Partners is the master developer of Kiawah Island, a 10,000-acre sea island located 21 miles south of Charleston, South Carolina. The company has five main subsidiaries operated by a talented team who share a commitment to quality in every stage of development.
2 N Adgers Wharf
Charleston, SC 29401
Phone: (843) 724-3419
By Does Big oil give Rep. Brown money too? on August 20th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Here is Henry giving taxpayer subsidies to rich fat cat developers on Kiawah- and Brown also wants to drill for lil dab of oil off of South Carolina’s coast- as long as each side chips in campaign cash everything is cool with him .
I thought the Charleston City Paper’s article on the pure folly of oil drilling off our coast.was well done. It states”
“The MMS estimates that the South Atlantic offshore region from South Carolina to the middle part of Florida contains 410 million barrels of oil. At the nation’s current consumption rate of 20.68 million barrels every day, tapping that entire resource would power the U.S. for 20 days.”
Henry’s answer to high gas prices=offshore drilling- shows his incompetence as a leader.
By James on August 20th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Sheesh – only in South Carolina can someone segui Brownie’s contributions to our nation’s dependance on rag-head oil.
I have been sick of the rag-heads since the Munich Olympics and we’ve been filling their coffers ever since while big bad oil gets 7 cents on the dollar.
Americans don’t agree with you or with the Messiah’s tire gauge “solution”. Leave it to Pelosi and the Dems to blow an election that shouldn’t even be close!
By Dave Van Hinkel on August 26th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Forget about Brown, I think the gal in green has a nice rack… the blue one too.
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