Warren pushing the interests of major defense contractors [View all]

[wyldwolf]

Elizabeth Warren’s standing as a liberal warrior immune to the influence of Big Business hasn’t stopped her from pushing the interests of major defense contractors back home.

Warren has fought to stop the Army from shifting funds away from a Massachusetts-built communications network to pay for unanticipated costs associated with the war in Afghanistan. She’s lobbied for problem-plagued General Dynamics-made tactical radios. And she’s pledged to protect Westover Air Reserve Base from the budget ax — all while saying she supports “targeted” cuts elsewhere.

Warren didn’t respond to questions as she walked to a vote in the Capitol, and an aide referred POLITICO to the senator’s spokeswoman, Lacey Rose, who also didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. But the half-dozen industry insiders who were interviewed painted a picture of a senator who’s willing to advocate for local defense firms but has no relationship with the industry on a national level.

“I have seen the senator and her team take a very active role in defense matters in Massachusetts,” said Joseph Donovan, a Boston-based defense lobbyist with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough and a former aide to then-Gov. Mitt Romney. “I’ve been in roundtables that her office has organized with major defense contractors and small businesses.”
One local defense executive noted it’s no secret the industry in 2012 backed Warren’s Republican opponent, Army National Guard veteran Scott Brown, explaining that Brown’s seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee gave him a big platform to advocate for home-state contractors
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But the executive said Warren’s made an effort to reach out to defense companies, including visits to Raytheon and General Dynamics facilities in her state, and that “there’s certainly not an impression that she’s adversarial” to big-name contracting firms.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/elizabeth-warren-defense-massachusetts-115157.html#ixzz3Rp2NnGhu