WP: Lobbyists Help Fund Ripon Society Travel (for GOP lawmakers)

[DeepModem Mom]

Lobbyists Help Fund Ripon Society Travel
GOP Group Took Lawmakers to Europe
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 23, 2006; Page A04


Since 1964, the Ripon Society has tried to create a more inclusive GOP through "moderate, progressive policy formation," according to its official mission statement.

In recent years, however, a leading public watchdog group suggests, the Ripon Society has added an unofficial mission: travel agency to lobbyists.

Under president Richard S. Kessler, himself a prominent Washington lobbyist, people who represent corporate interests before Congress have "spent millions taking lawmakers to European capitals and U.S. resorts" under the auspices of the Ripon Society and the affiliated Ripon Educational Fund, the group Public Citizen charged in a new report.

The lure for the lobbyists who fund them is that they also take the trips, and gain "unbridled access" to influential lawmakers, said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

The practice is a way of "skirting congressional ethics rules that forbid lobbyists from paying for congressional travel," the report charges....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/22/AR2006012200979.html

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Ripon got "pwned" back in the early 80s

It was considered to be the last bastion of Republican progressivism, and was a prominant cherry to be picked by the emerging Radical Right. So, after Reagan was sworn in, it was turned into a zombie outfit.

--p!

[MO_Dem]

2. What kind of government do we have?

Surely, this is not democracy, is it?