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Billionaire Lifts Marco Rubio, Politically and
Personally
By MICHAEL BARBARO and STEVE EDER
MAY 9, 2015
MIAMI — One day in the State
Capitol in Tallahassee, Marco Rubio, the young speaker of
the House, strayed from the legislative proceedings to single out a lanky,
silver-haired man seated in the balcony: a billionaire auto dealer named Norman
Braman.
This man, Mr. Rubio said in
effusive remarks in 2008, was no ordinary billionaire, hoarding his cash or
using it to pursue selfish passions.
“He’s used it,” Mr. Rubio
said, “to enrich the lives of so many people whose names you will never know.”
As it turned out, one of the people enriched was Mr. Rubio himself.
As Mr. Rubio has ascended in
the ranks of Republican politics, Mr. Braman has emerged as a remarkable and
unique patron. He has bankrolled Mr. Rubio’s campaigns. He has financed Mr.
Rubio’s legislative agenda. And, at the same time, he has subsidized Mr.
Rubio’s personal finances, as the rising politician and his wife grappled with
heavy debt and big swings in their income.
Now, with Mr. Rubio vaulting
ahead of much of the Republican presidential field, Mr. Braman is poised to
play an even larger part and become Mr. Rubio’s single biggest campaign donor,
with an expected outlay of approximately $10 million for the senator’s pursuit
of the White House.
A detailed review of their
relationship shows that Mr. Braman, 82, has left few corners of Mr. Rubio’s
world untouched. He hired Mr. Rubio, then a Senate candidate, as a lawyer;
employed his wife to advise the Braman family’s philanthropic foundation; helped
cover the cost of Mr. Rubio’s salary as an instructor at a Miami college; and gave Mr. Rubio access to
his private plane.
The money has flowed both
ways. Mr. Rubio has steered taxpayer funds to Mr. Braman’s favored causes,
successfully pushing for an $80 million state grant to finance a
genomics center at a private university and securing $5 million for
cancer research at a Miami
institute for which Mr. Braman is a major donor.
Even in an era dominated by
super-wealthy donors, Mr. Braman stands out, given how integral he has been not
only to Mr. Rubio’s political aspirations but also to his personal finances.
Mr. Rubio, 43, is unabashed
in acknowledging the influence of Mr. Braman, a commanding and litigious figure
with so much clout in Miami
that he almost single-handedly recalled a sitting mayor.
In an interview, Mr. Rubio
described Mr. Braman as a father figure who had given him advice on everything
from what books to read to how to manage a staff. After Mr. Rubio’s father died
in 2010, Mr. Braman called every other day to check in.
Pressed on his financial ties
to Mr. Braman, Mr. Rubio said in an interview that he saw no ethical issue.
“What is the conflict?” he asked. “I don’t ever recall Norman Braman ever
asking for anything for himself.”
He acknowledged that Mr.
Braman had approached him about state aid for projects, such as funding for
cancer research, but said that he had supported the proposals on their merits.
The reliance on Mr. Braman is
likely to put a spotlight on the finances of Mr. Rubio, who ranks among the
least-wealthy candidates in the emerging Republican field. Mr. Rubio left the
Florida House of Representatives in 2008 with a net worth of $8,351, multiple
mortgages and $115,000 in student debt. In his latest financial disclosure
form, for 2013, he reported at least $450,000 in liabilities, including two
mortgages and a line of credit.
Mr. Braman and aides to Mr.
Rubio have declined to say how much personal financial assistance he has
provided to Mr. Rubio and his wife, directly or indirectly, but it appears to
total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In a series of interviews at
his office in downtown Miami,
above showrooms of shiny BMWs and Rolls-Royces (he also sells Cadillacs, Audis
and Bugattis), Mr. Braman praised the Rubios. He recounted what he described as
“excellent service from them” over the years, and said he wanted nothing in
return for his financial help.
“I’m not going to be an
ambassador or anything like that,” he said.
Mr. Braman — a former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles; the
chairman of Art Basel, which stages art shows;
and a collector who owns works by Andy Warhol,
Alexander Calder and Picasso — emphasized that there were limits to the
friendship.
“I also have a yacht,” Mr.
Braman said, “that Senator Rubio has never seen.”
Mr. Braman has the manner of
a man accustomed to getting what he wants. He was vacationing in France one summer when the mayor of Miami — not the one he
had recalled from office — informed him that he would seek to raise taxes. Mr.
Braman hung up the phone, turned to his wife and declared: “Goodbye, I’m
heading back to Miami
to fight this.” He returned home and led a successful campaign to block the
increase.
“If you’re going to do
something, you do it all the way,” he said.
As early as 2008, Mr. Braman
made a bold prediction, captured in a video tribute to his friend: Mr. Rubio
would be the first Hispanic president of the United States. Seeing that through
in 2016, Mr. Braman said in one of the interviews, is “part of my legacy.”
The partnership began in the
early 2000s when a Miami
lawmaker introduced them. Mr. Braman, himself the son of immigrants, was
instantly drawn to the story of Mr. Rubio, a child of struggling Cuban
refugees. By 2004, Mr. Braman and his wife had donated $1,000 to Mr. Rubio’s
State House campaign, the first of many contributions.
Mr. Rubio quickly emerged as
a dogged champion of Mr. Braman’s most cherished cause: state funding for a Miami
cancer institute that bears the Braman family name.
Florida’s governor, Jeb Bush, had vetoed the funding in 2004,
incurring Mr. Braman’s public fury. “Frankly, as a very active Republican, I’m
ashamed of him,” Mr. Braman said then of Mr. Bush.
Mr. Rubio did not let it happen
again. The next year, he secured the cancer funding over Mr. Bush’s objections.
“Marco,” Mr. Bush wrote in a somewhat grudging email to a lobbyist at the time,
“strongly wanted the Braman Cancer money.”
Soon, Mr. Rubio became a
regular visitor to Mr. Braman’s office on Biscayne Boulevard. By the time Mr. Rubio
was elected speaker of the House, the youngest in Florida’s history, Mr. Braman
felt close enough to show up at the 2005 celebration in Tallahassee and deliver
a memorable — and valuable — token of affection: a framed Revolutionary War-era
American flag. It hung, on loan, in Mr. Rubio’s office for the entirety of his
tenure as speaker.
In Mr. Braman, a Republican
with a strong distaste for wasteful government spending, an ardent commitment
to Israel
and a seemingly limitless bank account, Mr. Rubio found a devoted sponsor.
When Mr. Rubio geared up for
re-election to the House, more than a dozen individuals and companies linked to
Mr. Braman, including his Honda and Cadillac dealerships, gave Mr. Rubio $500
each, the maximum donation allowed under Florida law.
When Mr. Rubio decided to
write a book laying out a conservative vision for Florida’s future, Mr. Braman said, he
chipped in money to pay for its publication.
When Mr. Rubio announced his
signature legislative goal, an initiative to slash property taxes and raise the
sales tax, Mr. Braman contributed $255,000 to the advocacy group lobbying for
the changes, becoming by far its largest donor.
Mr. Rubio said the flow of
donations from Mr. Braman had no effect on his decision-making as House
speaker, adding that he would never give preferential treatment to a donor. But
in 2008, when Mr. Braman sought the $80 million for the genomics institute at
the University of
Miami, a large taxpayer
grant to a private college, Mr. Rubio delivered the opposite message: Mr.
Braman’s request, he said, had tilted the scales.
Usually, Mr. Rubio said at a
news conference at the time, he would have laughed off such an eye-popping
pitch. “But when Norman Braman brings it to you,” Mr. Rubio said, “you take it
seriously.”
Later that year, when Mr.
Rubio left state government, determined to shore up his finances before running
for the United States Senate, he landed a teaching job at Florida International
University, agreeing to
raise much of his salary through private donations.
Mr. Braman gave $100,000,
according to records he shared with The New York Times. Dario Moreno, who
oversaw the university center where Mr. Rubio worked and who taught classes
with him, confirmed that Mr. Rubio had raised the money from Mr. Braman.
In the spring of 2010, as Mr.
Braman was donating heavily to Mr. Rubio’s Senate campaign, his company, Braman
Management, hired Mr. Rubio as a lawyer for seven months. According to records
provided by Mr. Braman, the company paid Mr. Rubio until a week before he was
sworn in as a senator.
Four months after Mr. Rubio
left the payroll, Mr. Braman hired Mr. Rubio’s wife, Jeanette, who had little
professional experience in philanthropy, and her company, JDR Events, to advise
the Braman foundation. Mr. Braman declined to discuss her compensation.
Mr. Rubio said the offers of
work from Mr. Braman had a simple motivation: “We are close personal friends.
They trust us.”
Mrs. Rubio’s job, fielding
and vetting requests for donations to one of Miami’s
biggest charitable foundations, has given her a major profile in the world of Florida philanthropy.
An internal Braman foundation
document makes clear that Mrs. Rubio has become a crucial gatekeeper. “On
hold,” read a notation next to a pending donation. “Wait to hear from
Jeanette.”
At times, the foundation’s
work has coincided with Mr. Rubio’s own globe-trotting political needs. In
2013, when Mr. Rubio traveled to the Middle East,
Mrs. Rubio joined him, with the Braman foundation paying for her travel.
According to Mr. Rubio’s aides, she was conducting work for the foundation
abroad.
On four occasions, Mr. Rubio
has traveled on Mr. Braman’s private plane, reimbursing him each time.
Mr. Braman acknowledged
seeking the occasional “small favor” from Mr. Rubio’s Senate office. There was
the daughter of the woman who does his nails, Mr. Braman recalled, who had an
immigration problem, and the student from Tampa
who wanted a shot at military school. In both cases, he said, Mr. Rubio’s staff
was quick to respond. (Mr. Rubio’s staff said it had decided not to recommend
the Tampa
student.)
Mr. Braman seemed conflicted
about his reputation as civic power broker, at once boasting of his ability to
draw a high-ranking Miami
official to his office with a single phone call and seeming anxious that he not
be viewed as entitled.
“I don’t consider myself a
fat cat,” he said. “Don’t make me out to be a fat cat.”
As he spoke in his office, an
aide interrupted, presenting Mr. Braman with a yellow sticky note. The Florida
Senate was about to vote on a bill he had sought, granting auto dealers like
himself greater leverage over car manufacturers.
“That was fast,” Mr. Braman
said.
Moments later, another
adviser popped his head in, declaring victory. “Thirty to four,” he said of the
vote, with a fist pump.
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