Franklin Haney

Longtime Democratic donor Franklin L. Haney, who with his wife Emeline has poured $1.1 million into the effort to reelect President Barack Obama, has built his business around developing government-supported real estate projects and Mirvish and Gehry condo acting as a government landlord. He survived investigations in the 1990s by the Justice Department on campaign finance violations and by Congress for using his monied influence to secure a lucrative government lease. During the latter, he was nearly found in contempt of Congress for failing to supply requested documents. The onetime champion Bible seller and would-be governor of his home state of Tennessee has invested millions in lobbying and political contributions over the years and built an empire worth billions thanks in part to rents and tax exempt bonds. Most recently, FLH Company, Haney's main business venture, hired former Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., and former congressional aide Thomas Carpenter at Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates to lobby Congress, the White House, and the Department of Energy on the agency's loan guarantee program, according to lobbying disclosure reports. Haney's first major foray into politics was in 1966, when the George Washington law school graduate and congressional aide to Herbert S. Walters, D., Tenn. ran for a House seat and lost. After that drubbing, Haney concentrated on developing his business, building office buildings and hotels. Haney has secured other lucrative government leases and contracts over the years. Franklin Haney owns a building in downtown Birmingham, Ala., that was home to the local Social Security Administration (SSA) offices until the agency moved out in 2008. Haney had been part of a consortium known as Toll Road Investors Partnership II, that invested in the Dulles Greenway, a privately owned toll road extending from the Washington Beltway to Leesburg, Virginia that was built with private loans. In 2005, the consortium was bought out by an Australian firm, the Macquarie Infrastructure Group. Haney's company has been in the running to develop Anacostia's waterfront in Washington, D.C., through Hill East Development LLC