Wallace: Buchanan high on wealth list

By Jeremy Wallace, Herald Tribune

September 7, 2009

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, is one of the least senior members of Congress, but there is one area Buchanan remains among the upper echelon on Capitol Hill.

Personal wealth.

For the second consecutive year Buchanan, who is in his third year in Congress, is listed as the sixth wealthiest member of Congress, according to an analysis done by The Hill, a Washington D.C. newspaper.

Buchanan who made millions from a printing company he started in Michigan and from an automobile dealership empire he created in Florida, is worth a minimum of about $50.2 million according for federal financial disclosure reports he filed earlier this summer.

But that figure comes with a big asterisk. The financial disclosure reports are self-reported by members of Congress who often understate the real values of their assets. And the forms allow wild ranges for valuing assets. For instance, in Buchanan's report he lists his Sarasota 500 LLC, the company that technically owns Sarasota Ford, as being worth between $5 million and $25 million.

The Hill used the minimum values to calculate the net worth of each member of Congress, with that caveat that each is probably worth more.

Tops on the list was U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who has an estimated net worth of about $167.8 million. The other four ahead of Buchanan: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Jane Harman, D-Calif., Sen. Jay Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., and Jared Polis, D-Colo.