CNN's reports that Frist will put Santorum in charge of lobbying reform!

flpoljunkie

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Wed Jan-04-06 06:23 PM
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CNN's reports that Frist will put Santorum in charge of lobbying reform!

Edited on Wed Jan-04-06 06:24 PM by flpoljunkie

Ed Henry just reported this on Lou Dobbs. Henry neglected to mention that Santorum was the Republican point man on the "K Street Project." No way Ed Henry is unaware of Santorum's work with Delay on the K Street Project.

From a June 23, 2005, review of Elizabeth Drews' book "Selling Washington"

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18075

This remark is only slightly exaggerated. For over ten years, but particularly since George W. Bush took office, powerful Republicans,among them Tom DeLay and Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, have been carrying out what they call the "K Street Project," an effort to place more Republicans and get rid of Democrats in the trade associations and major national lobbying organizations that have offices on K Street in downtown Washington (although, of course, some have offices elsewhere).

DeLay, Santorum, and their associates organized a systematic campaign, closely monitored by Republicans on Capitol Hill and by Grover Norquist and the Republican National Committee, to put pressure on firms not just to hire Republicans but also to fire Democrats. With the election of Bush, this pressure became stronger. A Republican lobbyist told me, "Having the White House" has made it more possible for DeLay and Santorum "to enforce the K Street Project." Several Democratic lobbyists have been pushed out of their jobs as a result; business associations who hire Democrats for prominent positions have been subject to retribution. They are told that they won't be able to see the people on Capitol Hill they want to see. Sometimes the retribution is more tangible. The Republican lobbyist I spoke to said, "There's a high state of sensitivity to the partisanship of the person you hire for these jobs that did not exist five, six years ago—you hire a Democrat at your peril."

Last year retribution was taken against the Motion Picture Association of America, which—after first approaching without success a Republican congressman about to retire— hired as its new head Dan Glickman, a former Democratic representative from Kansas and secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration. Republicans had warned the MPAA not to hire a Democrat for the job. After Glickman was hired, House Republicans removed from a pending bill some $1.5 billion in tax relief for the motion picture industry. Norquist told me, "No other industry is interested in taking a $1.5 billion hit to hire a Clinton friend."After Glickman was selected, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported last year, "Santorum has begun discussing what the consequences are for the movie industry." Norquist said publicly that the appointment of Glickman was "a studied insult" and the motion picture industry's "ability to work with the House and the Senate is greatly reduced." Glickman responded by hiring prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert's former spokesman, for major MPAA jobs.