From The Skeleton Closet:
http://www.realchange.org/santorum.htm
One of the 3 Most Corrupt Senators
Santorum is one of the most corrupt politicians in recent memory, by which I mean, he repeatedly sponsored laws giving very specific help to companies -- worth millions of dollars -- and they immediately gave him large campaign donations and -- after he left the Senate -- hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars in cash that went directly into his pocket and made him rich. He was twice named one of America's 3 most corrupt senators by CREW, a clean-government group, and has become a millionaire from payments by these companies since was voted out of the Senate in 2006.
For example, Santorum bragged in 2006 that he had steered millions of dollars in earmarks to clients of American Continental Group, a lobbying firm. They gave him $14,000 that year in donations, and after he left office paid him $65,000 for “legislative policy consulting services.” Another firm he helped, Consol Energy, paid him $142,500 just in 2010 and 2011.
But that's nothing compared to what he got from Universal Health Service, a medical company with facilities in Puerto Rico that has been sued for Medicare fraud. You see, while in Congress, Santorum kept pushing very specific laws increasing Medicare payments in Puerto Rico; one would have cost the government $400 million. (The eventual bill gave them more money, but not that much.)
That seems like an odd cause for a small-government Senator from Pennsylvania to work so hard on -- until you find out Universal Health Service paid Santorum $395,000 for his "insights" after he left the Senate, and appointed him to their Board of Directors. During his time on the Board, UHS was sued for Medicare fraud (and settled out of court), and several of their facilities had their certifications suspended or cancelled.
Santorum, who entered the Senate as one of the least wealthy congresspeople, bought a $2 million, 5,000 SF house in Great Falls, VA in 2007. It has 4 bedrooms and 5 baths, and sits on 5 acres, and goes well with the 5 rental houses he has accumulated since entering Congress.
While in the Senate, Santorum held weekly meetings supporting Tom Delay's "K-Street Project," an effort to fill lobbying groups with Republican loyalists. And they rewarded him handsomely, even back then. In 2006, he received $500,000 from lobbyists, far more than any other federal candidate -- 40% more than the #2 recipient, George Allen.
It's true that CREW -- the group that named him one of the 3 most corrupt senators, out of 100 -- is a liberal-leaning group. Only five of their 25 corrupt congresscritters in 2006 were Democrats -- but they have pretty good credibility on the people they include. (Who they leave out may be a different story.) Their reports, which come out every year, are meticulously documented with solid media sources, ethics investigation reports and required government filings by the congresspeople themselves. They only picked 3 Senators out of 100, and Santorum was one of them. Most of the Congresspeople convicted of bribery or other ethical crimes since then -- such as Democrat William Jefferson, and Republicans Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham - were listed first in these reports. They're pretty solid.
Now, unlike Jefferson and Cunningham, no one is accusing Santorum of direct bribery -- no one found bundles of cash in his freezer -- but he had a remarkably consistent pattern of collecting money from big special interests right at the time he did them big, highly specific favors. We're not talking about generic actions like voting to keep taxes low. These are very detailed provisions, added to bills by Santorum, that put millions of dollars in the coffers of these companies.
One dramatic example was Santorum introducing a bill that required the National Weather Service to keep collecting weather data, but said they couldn't release it to the public! They had to hand it to private weather companies who then would make the profit off of it. Guess what? Accuweather, a private weather company in Santorum's state, gave him tens of thousands of dollars right during the time he promoted this absurd bill.
There are many more examples -- $25,000 from execs at Waste Management & Processes, Inc. after Santorum proposed a $100 million subsidy for their coal-to-diesel plant; $6,000 from Miller and Annheuser-Busch right before Santorum introduced a bill cutting the beer barrel excise tax in half; $20,000 from tobacco interests around the time he blocked a law allowing the FDA to regulate tobacco, etc. etc. It's pretty shameless even by Congressional standards.
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