Soft bribery of politicians takes another form: endowments

WASHINGTON — Nearly a dozen current or former lawmakers have been honored by university endowments financed in part by corporations with business before Congress, posing some potential conflicts like that attributed to Representative Charles B. Rangel in an House ethics complaint.

The donations from businesses to the endowments ranged from modest amounts to millions of dollars, federal records show. And the lawmakers, who include powerful committee chairmen or party leaders, often pushed legislation or special appropriations sought by the corporations.

An endowed chair at the University of Hawaii honoring Senator Daniel K. Inouye, the Hawaii Democrat and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was financed in part by $100,000 from a cruise ship line that the senator helped with legislation allowing it to expand its American ports of call.

A program at South Carolina State University named for Representative James E. Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a key backer of legislation to promote new nuclear power plants, stands to benefit from donations by Fluor and Duke Energy, which want to build plants.

And an endowment at the University of Louisville intended as a tribute to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a military contractor that later got a $12 million earmark sponsored by the senator.

Companies and lawmakers defend the donations as simply contributions to a good cause, but critics charge that they are a way for businesses to influence lawmakers in addition to campaign contributions, and without the limits or required disclosures.

“It is another way to curry favor — and a less visible one,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “But it can perhaps be even more effective, because the sums can be much vaster, and it really feeds the members’ vanity as these centers are something that will last in perpetuity.”