THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507130368
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
While lobbyists were jawboning congressmen and buying newspaper ads this spring to push Newport News Shipbuilding's bid for the Navy's submarine business, the company's political arm was aiding the cause by spreading cash around Capitol Hill, according to a new report.
Campaign contributions by the political action committee for Tenneco Inc., the Peninsula shipyard's parent company, increased more than 100-fold - from $500 to $51,500 - during the first four months of this year as compared with the same period in 1993, said the Center for Responsive Politics.
The nonprofit group, which studies campaign finance issues, said Tenneco's PAC gave $51,500 to various congressmen from January through April of this year. A PAC for General Dynamics, Tenneco's sub-building rival, donated $69,200 during the same period.
In a 52-page study of giving by defense contractors, the center did not accuse Tenneco or General Dynamics of buying votes. But it noted that the largest chunks of each firm's donations went to members who have supported the company or been positioned to play a critical role in the sub debate.
Congressmen who have generally opposed the Navy's submarine program, the study said, tend to get little help from either company.
Mike Hatfield, a Newport News Shipbuilding spokesman, scoffed at any suggestion that the contributions were related to the company's campaign for Navy sub contracts.
``There really is no connection,'' Hatfield said. The PAC's contributions are up this year, he said, because the company realized that ``good corporate citizenship'' required it to become more active in the political process.
``We really were not very active in 1993,'' Hatfield observed. During the same period in '94, as members of Congress geared up for re-election campaigns, Tenneco's PAC gave about $78,000, he said.
Hatfield also noted that the money distributed by the PAC comes directly from Tenneco employees; corporate funds cannot be donated to federal candidates. Tenneco is a conglomerate, so many of the employees who contribute to its PAC have interests other than the submarine competition, he said.
The same thing would be true of General Dynamics, which builds subs at its Electric Boat Division in Groton, Conn., but is involved in other weapons systems as well.
One veteran congressional aide suggested privately that the volume of giving by both firms and by other defense PACs this year is also related at least in part to the Republican takeover of Congress. The largest donations typically go to the most powerful members, who until January were all Democrats, the aide suggested.
The report, which also included a study of contributions by contractors advancing the Air Force's B-2 bomber, acknowledged that geography also plays a part in campaign finance.
Two Hampton Roads area congressmen, Herbert H. Bateman of Newport News and Norman Sisisky of Petersburg, each received the legal maximum donation of $10,000 from Tenneco's PAC last year, for example. But the interests of the thousands of their constituents who work at the yard would make both men natural supporters of the yard even if neither received money. by CNB