Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart Breaks the Law Again. Hides the source of nearly $5,000 in campaign contributions from the voters

Posted: Jul 16, 2008

Immediate Release:-According to FEC campaign finance disclosures, Lincoln Diaz-Balart accepted nearly $5,000 in campaign contributions during the second quarter of 2008 without disclosing his contributors’ occupation or employer. FEC law requires candidates for elected office to disclose the occupation and employer of any contributor who gives over $200 to the campaign. In stark contrast, Raul Martinez has disclosed all contributions and has gone well beyond what is required by law.


Campaign finance disclosure laws ensure that elected officials and public policy are not influenced by money and big special interests. Diaz-Balart has a long history of breaking the law and participating in the pay to play politics of Washington that needs to be fixed.

In March of 2000, the FEC released an eighteen-page report announcing that Diaz-Balart’s campaign would be fined $30,000 for numerous violations discovered during a year-long audit of the campaign’s finances for the 1997-1998 election cycle, including his collection of $114,000 in contributions that were never accounted for. In 2001, the FEC announced that they fined Diaz-Balart’s congressional campaign $5,500 for filing late campaign finance reports during the 2000 election cycle (Miami Herald, 2/17/01). Diaz-Balart was also one of several individuals to collect tainted campaign funds from Mattel, Inc. that resulted in a $477,000 FEC fine (Miami Herald, 12/06/02; Orlando Sentinel, 12/06/02).
Without the presence of campaign finance disclosure laws, Diaz-Balart would never have been held accountable for the following:

  • Hanger Orthopedic Group’s political action committee and its executives provided $7,100 in campaign contributions to Lincoln Diaz-Balart weeks before he co–sponsored a prosthetics parity bill on March 13 that would broaden insurance coverage for its products and boost its bottom line. Diaz-Balart received an additional $4,750 from Hanger during the last fundraising quarter. Hanger Orthopedic Group is the focus of both a Medicare fraud investigation by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn , N.Y., and a parallel inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission (Miami Herald, 6/2/2008; Miami Herald 6/2/2008).
  • Diaz-Balart received between $2,000 and $3,500 in tobacco money before voting against youth smoking prevention, detailed in a 1997 study by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (States News Service, 9/02/97).
  • During the 2007-2008 election cycle, Diaz-Balart has received over $30,000 from Big Oil and Gas and voted against shifting tax breaks for Big Oil to a fund for developing alternative energy (Center for Responsive Politics, accessed 7/16/08; HR 6, Vote #40, 1/18/07).


It is no surprise that Diaz-Balart continues to break the law. He has condoned the culture of corruption in Washington for far too long. In 2006, Diaz-Balart voted twice to prevent the House Ethics committee to begin an investigation into the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal (HRS 762, Vote #87, 4/05/06; HRS 746, Vote #76, 3/30/06). In 2005, Diaz-Balart voted to protect indicted Congressman Tom Delay from investigation (HRS 5, Vote #6, 1/04/05).

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