State Senate hopeful Chip Campsen used his friendship with Gov. Mark Sanford to save his family more than $1 million, Campsen’s opponent in the Republican runoff said Monday.

Incumbent Sen. John Kuhn, R-Charleston, accused Campsen of enlisting then-U.S. Rep. Sanford to get Congress to do what five federal courts would not — save his family’s business more than $1 million.

Kuhn also accused Sanford of hypocrisy — for pushing “pork-barrel” legislation for a friend while railing against it for everyone else.

During six years in the House and two as governor, Sanford has been critical of government spending on lawmakers’ pet projects — particularly those tacked on unrelated bills. He threatened to sue the Legislature over that practice, known as bobtailing.

Campsen and a Sanford spokesman said Kuhn’s charges were baseless.

Campsen is executive vice president of Fort Sumter Tours Inc., which has a contract with the National Park Service to ferry tourists to and from Fort Sumter, the historic site of the beginning of the Civil War.

“What does this prove?” Kuhn said. “My opponent will use political influence for personal gain.”

Kuhn, elected to the Senate in a special election in 2001, finished second to Campsen in a three-way June 8 primary but received enough votes to force a runoff June 22.

Campsen served six years in the S.C. House before stepping down to become a top adviser to Sanford in 2003. He quit later that year to challenge Kuhn in the GOP primary.

Sanford was only helping a small business in his district fight unfair government actions, Campsen said Monday. He also accused Kuhn of trying to smear him a week before the election.

A spokesman for Sanford called Kuhn “untrustworthy” and said Sanford was supported by the other members of the state’s congressional delegation and that U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., had introduced a similar bill.

Fort Sumter Tours has had the Park Service contract since 1962. The company carries an estimated 230,000 visitors a year to the fort in Charleston Harbor.

In 1986, Campsen’s family signed a 15-year contract with the Park Service. Fort Sumter tours agreed to pay the Park Service 4.25 percent of what it makes, which was about $2.47 million in 1998.

Five years later, however, the Park Service re-evaluated the deal and increased the franchise fee to 12 percent.

Campsen’s company objected and continued to pay 4.25 percent, according to court records. After several years of trying to collect the increased fee, the Park Service threatened to terminate the contract in 1997. Fort Sumter Tours then sued the Park Service. Its only other option was to go to nonbinding arbitration.

Fort Sumter Tours lost five separate court decisions.

Then, Sanford introduced legislation in 2000 to require the Park Service to forgive the back fees and interest that the agency said Fort Sumter Tours owed, and to require the Park Service to offer binding arbitration.

Sanford and Campsen are longtime friends. Sanford told a House subcommittee hearing that he and Campsen often went hunting and fishing and that Campsen was with him when Sanford’s father died.

While the bill got favorable votes in subcommittee and committee, it died before the full House.

Five House members signed a letter opposing the bill in committee, saying there was “no justification” for it and that Fort Sumter Tours “has enjoyed a taxpayer-subsidized, government-sponsored monopoly.”

The Park Service, too, opposed the legislation. National Park Service director Robert Stanton told the House subcommittee that since 1979, the service has occasionally adjusted franchise contracts.

In four instances, Stanton testified, companies have disagreed with the Park Service decision and the parties were able to reach a settlement. In each case, the franchise fee was increased. Only Fort Sumter Tours took the Park Service to court and refused to negotiate.

When the bill died, Sanford had a provision added to a huge spending bill for four cabinet agencies that required the Park Service to negotiate with Fort Sumter Tours.

The Park Service and Fort Sumter Tours settled their differences in 2002. Instead of owing the government more than $2.2 million in back fees and interest, Campsen’s company agreed to pay $1.12 million. The company continues to provide service to Fort Sumter.

Those actions cost taxpayers $1 million, Kuhn said, and when Campsen lost in court, he “went to his powerful friends in D.C. for help.”

But Campsen said the Park Service tripled its franchise fee in the middle of the contract. He and his family thought that was not only unfair but illegal.

The Park Service admitted it made mistakes in analyzing the company’s financial information, which is how franchise fees are calculated, Campsen said. But the Park Service reached the same decision using corrected data.

Campsen said his father, George Campsen Jr., “quarterbacked” the issue.

“That’s the congressional delegation looking out for a small business that’s been lost in the morass of Washington bureaucracy,” Campsen said.

Kuhn is using “desperation negative campaigning,” Campsen said. “At worst, you sling mud and some of it sticks.”

Spokesman Will Folks said Sanford “has always stood up for small businesses and the best interest of individual taxpayers, no matter who they are.”

Kuhn told Sanford he would support Sanford’s government restructuring proposals, Folks said, but later worked against them.

Kuhn has said he supported most of Sanford’s plan and tried to save it in a Senate committee.

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com