Recently, the Pentagon released the list of its top 10 contractors for 2010, all which spent significant amounts of money lobbying Congress and contributing large sums to federal campaigns last year and in 2009.

Boeing—while only the second biggest contractor in terms of money received—spent the most money lobbying Congress between 2009 and 2010 at almost $35 million, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Explorer.

Northrop Grumman was second, spending $30 million.

The biggest contractor, Lockheed Martin, came in third for those same years spending $26 million lobbying.

Corporation	2009-2010 Contributions	2009-2010 Lobbying money	Total contractor misconduct cases	Number of contractor misconduct cases that were defense contracts
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION	$2,674,654	$25,950,000	67	25
THE BOEING COMPANY	$3,082,455	$34,746,000	47	20
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION	$1,836,746	$30,920,000	33	17
GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION	$1,457,799	$21,003,664	15	4
RAYTHEON COMPANY	$2,196,725	$14,100,000	22	13
OSHKOSH CORPORATION	$283,855	$2,140,000	0	0
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS INC.	$557,282	$9,900,000	11	7
UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION	$1,261,335	$22,630,000	16	6
BAE SYSTEMS PLC	$922,785	$9,377,000	8	1
SAIC INC.	$943,550	$6,390,000	11	5
TOTAL	$15,217,186	$177,156,664

 

Also noteworthy is the number of misconduct cases filed against each contractor, which usually results in fines to be paid by the contractor. All of the top ten names listed except OshKosh, as reported by the Project on Government Oversight, have had multiple cases filed against them with at least some violations incurred while working as contractors for the Department of Defense.

For instance, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has five cases of misconduct as a Defense contractor, but has 11 cases total on record dating back to 1995, also according to data made available by Influence Explorer. For the five cases where SAIC was a Defense contractor, the company paid out $6.6 million.

New contribution disclosure rules provide some transparency in the world of "soft" influence seeking. In this case, these disclosure rules require the disclosure of contributions made "in honor of" a covered official, a lawmaker, executive branch or military official. A Seattle Times article looking into these contributions in honor of Washington state lawmakers shows Rep. Norm Dicks, a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, as a frequent honoree for contributions made by corporations seeking defense contracts.

Boeing gave $10,000 earlier this year to one of Congressman Norm Dicks' favorite charities, the National Guard Youth Foundation.

So did Boeing's archrival, EADS, the parent company of Airbus.

But that's small change compared to another defense contractor, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which gave $100,000 to the youth foundation's gala dinner in February honoring Dicks, a Bremerton Democrat, for his staunch support of the charity.

TriWest followed that up with a $50,000 contribution to another charity event hosted by Dicks and four other members of the powerful defense-appropriations subcommittee that doled out $459 billion in contracts this year.

Giving money to a charity favored by a lawmaker isn't quite like giving to their campaign committee, but it will likely gain you brownie points when money for your business is on the table. In this case, the desire to influence behavior, while denied by all parties involved, is plain as day for anyone looking from the outside.

Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense is quoted in the article saying, "There's nothing outrageous at all about giving to something that helps a National Guard entity ... I think it's a soft lobbying tactic that can make lawmakers think you're in their camp and loyal to their interests."