Three lawmakers closely linked to the PMA Group lobbying and earmarks investigation have seen their collective campaign fundraising drop by... View Article
Continue readingThe Appropriate Culture of Corruption
The New York Times reports today on what could be the next great lobbying scandal. After his house and offices... View Article
Continue readingPMA Group, Clients Flood House Appropriators with Cash
For the long serving gentleman from Indiana, Rep. Pete Visclosky, more than $1.3 million. For the ranking member, Rep. C.W.... View Article
Continue readingPMA Group Investigation
After a series of articles noting the November FBI raid of the offices of the PMA Group, a Washington lobby... View Article
Continue readingMore Earmarks Coincidentally Conferred on Campaign Contributors
The other day a good friend reminded me that transparency only works if people use the information. Brian Faler of Bloomberg News does just that.
The $2 million earmarked for the Samueli Institute for Information Biology, started by Broadcom Corp. Chairman Henry Samueli and his wife Susan, was inserted into the measure by Democratic Representative Peter Visclosky. The Samueli family has contributed thousands of campaign dollars to Visclosky, whose Indiana district is nowhere near either the Alexandria, Virginia, institute or Broadcom, the Irvine, California-based maker of chips for wireless phones and other devices.It's a good thing that earmarks allow members meet the needs of their districts. (In fairness to Visclosky, some to the money he's funneling to the Samueli Institute will be funneled by them to the School of Medicine Northwest of Indiana University, which is in Visclosky's district. It's also worth noting that stories like this are possible largely because of the new rules that the House of Representatives adopted in January, bringing more transparency to earmarks.) Continue reading
How to win contracts and influence Congress
Somewhere in America a lobbyist, or maybe a contractor, is writing a book with that title. Lobbyists, freely seeking contracts with little or no restraint, appear to have perfected a system, with their clients, of winning contracts and gaining influence. TPM Muckraker -- posting about yesterday’s Vanity Fair expose on the seedy world of defense contracts (“a window into Babylon or the last stages of Rome”) -- explained the business model of companies seeking contracts in Washington: “First you get the congressman, then you get the earmarks, and then you get the money.”
Continue readingIn Blog Daylight:
- Ken Silverstein has a must-read post on earmarks at Harpers.org. Here's a slice of the action:
Consider here the tangled tale of Representative Pete Visclosky, an Indiana Democrat and a powerhouse on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, and a Washington lobby shop called The PMA Group. In November 2004, Visclosky secured a $900,000 earmark—the final tranche of $6.9 million in federal funding he won—to build the Purdue Technology Center, a high-tech “business incubator” in Merrillville, Indiana. Two months later, Visclosky participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the inauguration of the center. Visclosky also took credit for recruiting four of the center's seven charter firms, 21st Century Systems of Virginia, ProLogic of West Virginia, ACT-I of Texas, and Sierra Nevada of Nevada. But on closer inspection, Visclosky's actions are less like “recruiting” and more like “quid pro quo.” According to campaign finance records, all four of those firms have donated generously to Visclosky in the past, with ProLogic giving $19,000 to Visclosky since last year—making it the leading donor for his current reelection campaign. Sierra Nevada, ACT-I and, 21st Century are each on the list of the top-20 donors.
- Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit provides a Porkbusters Update. Reynolds quotes a report that indicates that Senators Bill Frist (R-TN), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) have put together "34 Senate signatures on a letter backing the veto threat the President laid out yesterday on the groaning Senate supplemental."
- Tim Shoop at Govexec's FedBlog writes about all those lawmakers justifying the earmarking practice. His take on it: "That's right folks. Hundreds of congressmen jockeying and horse-trading for approval of their pet projects is better than experienced professionals--accountable to their politically appointed overseers--making rational decisions about how to most effectively distribute appropriated dollars."
- « Previous
- 1
- 2
59063
