The Hill gives a run-down of the top "sharpshooters" and corporate lobbyists in Washington. An important list to know the behind the scenes power players. Here are the listed lobbyists who used to be elected members of Congress:
- Dick Armey, Piper Rudnick Gray Cary
- John Ashcroft, The Ashcroft Group
- Al D’Amato, Park Strategies
- Bob Dole, Alston & Bird
- Tom Downey, Downey McGrath
- Slade Gorton, Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds
- Bob Livingston, The Livingston Group
- Bill Paxon, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
- J.C. Watts, The J.C. Watts Cos.
- Vin Weber, Clark and Weinstock Weber
Giving Money Away
We've had numerous requests -- both by phone and online -- over the past several days about how to apply for grants from the Sunlight Foundation so I wanted to take a couple of minutes today to talk about that.
First you should know that we know that there is a large community of people and organizations who are already doing amazing things when it comes to making information about Congress available and accessible. We want to encourage them to go further by digitizing more information to make it searchable more easily and to present it in a truly public-friendly fashion. Our primary example of this is a grant we have already made (to the Center for Responsive Politics) to take the Personal Financial Disclosure Forms now filed on paper (!) by elected officials and make a searchable database out of them. Another example is a grant to OMB Watch to create a searchable database out of government grants and contracts.
Continue readingImam at a Pork Roast:
The Washington Post writes a profile of anti-pork Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) crusade to cut earmarks out of the emergency spending supplemental before the Senate. Only one of his amendments were ultimately successful and the lack of majority support from either party led him to withdraw many of his amendments challenging the earmarks. One of his challenges was to a $500 million earmark to aid rebuilding of a Northrop Grumman shipbuilding yard in Mississippi. The Wall Street Journal reports that the vote was 51-47 with both parties evenly dividing. One of the few successul amendments aimed at controlling spending was introduced by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and co-sponsord by Coburn. The amendment restricts the number of no-bid contracts for rebuilding in the Gulf Coast and was agreed to with a 98-0 vote.
Continue readingBizzaro World:
When Tom DeLay (R-TX) stated that he would file an ethics complaint against Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) I thought that this was probably one of the more absurd moments in the history of this recent Congress. But now Roll Call reports on something that is even more absurd:
In the irony-on-steroids category, guess who was defending his graduate thesis on Congressional ethics Monday? Cover your eyes and guess, then sit down for the answer. It was Michael Scanlon. Yes, that Michael Scanlon, the one who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. His topic, as Scanlon himself confirmed, was an “evaluative history of the House ethics process.” ... Our source says Scanlon got up and gave a roughly one-sentence introduction of his thesis before taking questions from the four faculty members and nine other students in the room. He says Scanlon talked about the House ethics committee and argued that the “system now is not broken, but functioning in the same manner it has since its creation.” Scanlon essentially argued that the House ethics process is “political in nature” and that Members were never expected to do a very good job at policing each other, the source says.Scanlon, when asked why he was getting his master's at such a "precarious" time in his life, responded that he finished his master's six years ago but didn't get around to arguing his thesis until now. Hmmm...six years ago. What happened to Michael Scanlon almost exactly six years ago? Oh yeah, Scanlon left Tom DeLay's office in April 2000 to work for Jack Abramoff. Bad idea. Continue reading
Second Guilty Plea Possible:
The investigation into alleged bribery involving Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) and a technology firm is closing in on the congressman. According to the Associated Press, Vernon Jackson, the chief executive of the technology firm iGate alleged to have bribed Rep. Jefferson, is scheduled to appear in court today and is likely to plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy to bribe. Jackson would be the second person to plead guilty in this bribery case. A former aide to Jefferson, Brent Pfeffer, pled guilty in January and accused a congressman - later revealed to be Jefferson - of demanding "bribes in exchange for his assistance in brokering two African telecommunications deals."
Continue readingHow Competitive?
If you follow the never-ceasing ups and downs of political pollsters, you’re no doubt aware of all the unhappiness voters have been expressing this year with the incumbents in Congress. You might think from this that most members are in peril of having to start a new career after November 7th, since the voters seem so restive.
Don’t bet on it. Absent an indictment, most incumbents – at least in the House of Representatives – will almost certainly glide to another term in office without much of a speed bump. The reelection rates for House incumbents in the last five elections have been 94%, 98%, 98%, 96% and 98%. The last time they dipped below 90% was in 1992 (when only 88% were reelected). The last time before that was in 1974.
Continue readingComing Controversies
Riding into the office today, I was kind of surprised to read an op-ed in Washington Times by Tom Bethell calling for offshore drilling along the East and West coast of the Unites States:
Among other changes, the White House should make the case for opening the East and West Coasts to offshore oil and gas exploration, as Fred Smith's Competitive Enterprise Institute has argued. The last offshore spill was in 1969 and the enviros have ruled that roost since.We've all heard plenty about the pros and cons of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve over the last few Congresses, and in there was some controversy, as Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ran for reelection in 2002, as to whether President Bush would push for offshore drilling along Florida's coast. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour wanted to expand oil operations off the Gulf Coast in the months before Katrina. And now it seems likely that drilling up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will become part of our energy debate, no doubt due to the rising cost of gasoline. Continue reading
What Does a K Street Project Do To You?:
Jonathan Chait links to a Cato study that shows what the consequences of the K Street Project have been for the Republicans:
Tom Delay's "K Street Project" attempted to harness the might of the business lobbying community to Republican goals. It ended instead by subordinating the Republican party to the wishes of the business lobbying community. Which is how it happened that Republicans worked a lot harder to ensure that the prescription drug benefit relieved businesses of the burden of their past prescription drug promises than to protect taxpayers.Matthew Contenetti's "The K Street Gang" offers the same theory: the K Street Project ultimately made the Republican majority subordinate to the business lobbies. Continue reading
72 Investigations:
According to the blog Muckraked! the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction is pursuing 72 investigations into allegations of fraud and corruption by contractors in Iraq.
Continue readingExactly What I’m Talking About:
So, I throw up a post and then find that Instapundit has exactly what I'm looking for:
And the House this week will vote on requiring members to attach their names to "earmarks" _ those hometown projects slipped into spending bills. The idea is that the sunshine of public scrutiny will mean fewer wasteful, silly sounding projects like $500,000 for a teapot museum in Sparta, N.C.Now who knows, maybe Sparta is such an awfully boring place that it needs a teapot museum. But the point of sunshine is to let other lawmakers and, most importantly, citizens see and scrutinize which lawmakers are putting what into the federal budget. Thank you Glenn for the Porkbusters Update. Continue reading
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