Congressman Tom Feeney: An Appreciation

[im10ashus]

Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006. By Ken Silverstein.

A few years back, university researchers found that during the 1990 stock market boom U.S. senators beat the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. “By comparison, corporate insiders beat the market by 5 percent, and typical households underperformed by 1.4 percent,” the Christian Science Monitor said of the research. “Financial experts . . . say the senators' collective achievement is a statistical stunner, too big to be a mere coincidence.”

Some House members are also astute investors. Consider Congressman Tom Feeney, a Florida Republican first elected in 2002. A former real estate lawyer, Feeney previously served in the Florida House of Representatives, including a two-year stint as Speaker.

Feeney, a close ally of the religious right and of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is known as an eccentric lawmaker. He once sought to ban children from studying the dangerous art of yoga unless they first obtained parental approval, and he has called for Florida to secede from the Union if the federal debt topped $6 million. He's also one of the most corrupt members of Congress according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in part because he went on a golfing trip to Scotland in 2003 that was paid for by Jack Abramoff.

In May of this year, Feeney reported on his personal financial disclosure form that he was the joint owner of unit 2308 at 8600 Ridgewood Avenue in Cape Canaveral, Florida. That's the address for a condominium at Royal Mansions resort, where (according to the resort’s website) “beachfront dreams come true” and where, for lucky residents, “morning sunbeams stream into your spacious vacation condo, completely equipped.”

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http://harpers.org/sb-congressman-tom-feeney-an-appreciation-1152659942.html