K Street Project

[rollhead]

Interesting story on NPR today about how the Republican power structure took over the entire Washington D.C. lobbying industry.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5148982

[Darryl G. Thomas]

I heard the report this morning while getting ready for work.

Basically it's extortion. Like the scene in Godfather II where Vito Corleone is forced to give up his job to the local Mafioso's nephew.

DeLay says the Republican Party is running things now so all you lobbyists have to get rid of the Dems on your payrolls and replace them with Republicans. Oh, yeah, my family members need jobs too.

What's amazing about the K Street Project is that it was (and is) so covert and yet the Washington establishment didn't freak out over it. Including the press. especially the press.

Yeah, quid pro quo has always been a part of politics, but it's never been so well organized and on such a large scale.

[groover]

A Washington Tidal Wave

Blackjack: Members of Congress rushed to give back money. DeLay stepped aside. Reformers pledged to fix the system. Can anything change the Capitol's money-hungry ways? Behind the Abramoff lobby scandal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10756433/site/newsweek/

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

I heard the report this morning while getting ready for work.

Basically it's extortion. Like the scene in Godfather II where Vito Corleone is forced to give up his job to the local Mafioso's nephew.

DeLay says the Republican Party is running things now so all you lobbyists have to get rid of the Dems on your payrolls and replace them with Republicans. Oh, yeah, my family members need jobs too.

What's amazing about the K Street Project is that it was (and is) so covert and yet the Washington establishment didn't freak out over it. Including the press. especially the press.

Yeah, quid pro quo has always been a part of politics, but it's never been so well organized and on such a large scale.

Darryl, I was particularly struck by the news that out of the 36 TOP Washington lobbyists 33 were Republican and 3 were Democrats. Ten years ago, right as the GOP took over the house the split was 50-50.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

3?

Were they Blue Dog Democrats?

[rollhead]

More from the American Progess Center:

Breach of Contract

In 1994, the right wing gained control over the House of Representatives on the strength of a series of reforms embodied in the so-called "Contract with America." The contract ostensibly "aimed to restore the faith and trust of the American people in their government" and end the “cycle of scandal and disgrace” in government. A year later, then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) was already plotting to breach that contract by undertaking a project to develop cozier relations with Washington, D.C. lobbyists. High-minded policy goals would take a backseat in DeLay’s pay-to-play system where the success of lobbyists would be dictated not by how compelling a case they could make, but rather by how willing they would be to line the pockets of DeLay and his colleagues. Conceptualized as a tool for the right-wing preservation of power, the “K Street Strategy,” as it became known, created the culture in which Jack Abramoff’s criminal activity was encouraged and rewarded.



HOW THE K STREET PROJECT WORKED: In his dealings with K Street lobbyists, DeLay explicitly stated he would operate by “the old adage of punish your enemies and reward your friends.” (To gain influence over legislation, trade associations and corporate lobbyists were ordered to do three things: 1) refuse to hire Democrats, 2) hire only deserving Republicans as identified by the congressional leadership, and 3) contribute heavily to Republican coffers.) Despite being admonished by the House Ethics Committee numerous times for his conduct, DeLay’s pay-to-play machine continued to plow full-speed ahead. With federal benefits up for sale, corporations quickly identified the need to need to hire more lobbyists, giving rise to one of the greatest growth industries in America. Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, proudly proclaimed in 2002 that [conservatives] “will have 90-10 [percentage advantage in staffing] on K Street and 90-10 business giving.”



IDEAS TOOK A BACKSEAT: Lost in the pay-to-play system is any concern for good governance. The Wall Street Journal recently editorialized, the real problem "isn't about lobbyists so much as it is the atrophying of its principles. As their years in power have stretched on, House Republicans have become more passionate about retaining power than in using that power to change or limit the federal government. Gathering votes for serious policy is difficult and tends to divide a majority. Re-election unites them, however, so the leadership has gradually settled for raising money on K Street and satisfying Beltway interest groups to sustain their incumbency. This strategy has maintained a narrow majority, but at the cost of doing anything substantial. ... Ideas are an afterthought, when they aren't an inconvenience."



IMBALANCE OF POWER: The K Street scheme had a dramatic influence on policy. While it is well-recognized that business interests profited from the K Street Strategy, less attention is paid to those who lost out. As Michael Crowley, a writer for The New Republic, recently noted on C-Span, “In times like these when we have a budget crunch, it's not subsidies for corporations or tax loopholes that go; it's Medicaid and aid and health care for low-income disadvantaged people who don't really have lobbies in Washington with the clout equivalent to some of America's biggest corporations.” The last few months of Congress are a testament to that fact. In the name of cutting federal spending, Congress recently proposed a budget trimming Medicaid funding, federal child-support enforcement, and student loans to save $40 billion. But the right wing quickly turned around and distributed these savings back out in the form of business-friendly tax cuts.



A SYSTEM MADE FOR ABRAMOFF: Jack Abramoff was “closely associated with the K Street Project.” In fact, the system was a perfect fit for Abramoff, given his stated desire to shun low-paying political activist work in favor of striking it rich. “I wanted to make money,” he said. A former chairman of the College Republican National Committee, Abramoff decided that his connections in the conservative movement could help him at a time when Republicans were rising to power in Washington. Abramoff developed a motley crew of right-wing allies, including anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, Christian right-wing leader Ralph Reed, and a host of conservative lawmakers. “He is someone on our side,'' said DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham. “He has access to DeLay.” And Abramoff played the game as DeLay wanted it played. By securing clients with deep pockets and federal legislative interests, Abramoff was able to contribute heavily to Republican leaders (raising at least $120,000 for the 2004 Bush campaign). What eventually brought Abramoff down was how audaciously he worked the system. He now concedes that he illegally “offered and provided a stream of things of value to public officials in exchange for official acts and influence and agreements to provide official action and influence.” In return for legislative and personal favors, the things of value he provided to lawmakers included “foreign and domestic travel, golf fees, frequent meals, entertainment, election support for candidates for government office, employment for relatives of officials and campaign contributions.”



RAMPANT ABUSE OF POWER: New York Times columnist David Brooks explained "the real problem wasn't DeLay, it was DeLayism, the whole culture that merged K Street with the Hill, and held that raising money is the most important way to contribute to the team." The culture permeated the entire congressional leadership; they were willing buyers of what lobbyists were selling. "We simply have too much power," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), speaking of lawmakers' ability to target tax dollars for particular projects, contractors or campaign donors. The current race for the majority leader post left vacant by DeLay reveals the far-reaching impact of the K Street culture. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) shared connections to Abramoff and has taken other actions to benefit corporate lobbyists. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) “has strong connections to lobbyists: He met weekly with leading lobbyists to enlist their support and discuss strategy during his four years as House Republican Conference chairman, from 1995 to 1998.” Very few of the congressmen who have been in positions of power over the last decade have clean hands. Many of them share the pay-to-play values of Tom DeLay and the K Street ideology of Jack Abramoff.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

You know what? Screw David Brooks and screw the Wall Street Journal. They knew what DeLay was doing but they didn't say a peep because they wanted the Republican Party to control the governement. Well now they've got it lock, stock and barrel. Now they can go on and on about "conservative principles".

Anyone catch David Brooks on the Charlie Rose Show the other night? He was going on an on about how it's no longer about ideology it's about which team you're on (Republican or Democrat).

Cool, I'm down with the premise. But I'm thinking Brooks and his ilk were a major part of that process. But now that the federal budget's off the hook and Iraq could really, really blow up any minute, he wants a "third team" of moderates like McCain and even Hillary Clinton (damn!).

Bullshit. Too late. What's worse now? Tax and spend liberalism or no tax and keep spending "conservatism"?

[rollhead]

Darryl:

Since I've been following New York State government, I haven't really seen the Republicans as Republicans or the Democrats as Democrats.

Its really like the "Crips" (Democrats) vs. the "Bloods" (Republicans).

In fact, I don't think that many in politics actually have the integrity of your standard, garden-variety gang member. At least Crips and Bloods have a sense of loyalty, but the political rats are the first to leave the ship as soon as the boat starts taking on water.

You are right, ideology takes a back seat -- way back seat -- to the power and money grab.

To Democrats, the working poor and minorites are simply "voting blocks" that they try to manipulate to their advantage.

Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, are like Bunraku performers... they are manipulating a big puppet on stage, playing to the audience, while their true selves are only interested in accruing and keeping power.

it surprises me that David Brooks would be honest enough to say it because those Times reporters/columnist are trying to game the system, too.

They do anything -- like Judith Miller showed us -- to get cozy with power, and to hell with truth or accuracy.

[jesus marion joseph]

Now you're talking, rollie!

[Al in NYC]

There is a nice short piece by Hendrik Hertzberg in the latest New Yorker that addresses the K Street Project, and what it really means.

Here is an excerpt:

If a scandal is defined as something exceptional—as an unusually egregious display of political squalor that sooner or later involves prosecutors and indictments—then this one is as Republican as privatized Social Security. By the charitable giveback standard, it’s either eighty per cent Republican and twenty per cent “bipartisan” (i.e., Democratic) or 83–17, as measured by, respectively, the party affiliations of the givers-back and the aggregate amounts they let go of. By the standard of straight (apparently legal) campaign contributions, the scandal is sixty-four per cent Republican: of the $5.3 million Abramoff funnelled to candidates and PACs through clients and associates from 1999 through 2004, “only” $1.9 million went to Democrats. But Abramoff, who is forty-six, has been a Republican operative since his college days. Every dollar of his personal political giving—two hundred thousand dollars since 2000—has gone to Republicans. He is a Bush-Cheney “Pioneer,” meaning he raised more than a hundred grand for the ticket. The shinier baubles—skybox fund-raisers, jobs for wives, lavish golfing trips, meals at Abramoff’s upscale restaurant—went almost exclusively to Republicans, especially those in the circle of Tom DeLay, the suspended House Majority Leader. And of those fingered in the Abramoff indictments as being involved in unlawful activities, from Abramoff himself to “Representative #1” and “Staffer B,” one hundred per cent are Republicans.

Abramoff was the apotheosis of the “K Street Project,” a highly successful, years-long effort to turn the capital’s “lobbying community” into a Republican auxiliary, by pressuring lobbying firms and trade associations to support a broad conservative agenda, hire only Republicans, and give money overwhelmingly to Republican politicians. In some ways, the K Street Project is a national, and grander, version of the big-city political machines of old. But those machines, corrupt though they were, had their Robin Hood aspects. The pols got the graft and the diamond-stickpin boys got the contracts, but the poor got turkeys, jobs, and, sometimes, genuinely useful public programs. The K Street Project is strictly Sheriff of Nottingham. K Street, by its nature, promotes the interests of the rich, especially the well-organized corporate rich: they’re the only ones who can afford its services. The lobbyists’ alliance with the dominant wing of the Republican Party is a near-perfect match. The reigning conservative ideologues in the White House and on Capitol Hill believe, with apparent sincerity, that the path to economic and social progress for all is to reward—“incentivize”—the rich and to liberate private business from the wealth-destroying fetters of regulation. When these become the highest purposes of public policy, and when the ameliorative functions of government are held in contempt, then a single thread ties together upper-income tax cuts, the dismantling of environmental and safety protections, the shredding of the social safety net, the peopling of regulatory agencies with cronies hostile to their purposes, and, finally, outright corruption. If government is seen as a whore, why not treat her like one? All that remains is to fleece the johns and divide the take.

The attractions of a K Street job are actually more perilous to the souls of Democrats, who are supposed to be tribunes of “working families.” Still, many of them succumbed to its lure when their party was in power. (Some still do, in the unlikely event that they can get hired.) But hypocrisy tinges their prosperity with shame. No such guilt need trouble those whose ideology glorifies Moloch as a matter of course. And a legislator who identifies wealth with virtue, but is condemned, for the time being, to live on the salary of a public servant, may come to see the lobbyist’s skybox as his natural habitat.

The whole article is here:
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/...talk_hertzberg

[Adam Hill]

It should be remembered that this kind of shake-down scheme was first
'professionalized' by a Democrat, former Congressman Tony Coehlo, who still carries quite a lot of influence in the Democratic party.