Indiana Congressman Steve Buyer (R) Quits! Amid Wife's Illness and Ethics Investigation

[democracy1st]

Run time: 03:13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDG7ueDLbOM   Posted on YouTube: January 30, 2010 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 30, 2010 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 2036

 
GOP Rep. Buyer, with wife ill, won't seek new term


INDIANAPOLIS -- Republican Rep. Steve Buyer announced Friday that he will not seek re-election this fall and will leave Congress after 18 years because his wife is ill.

Buyer choked back tears as he stood next to his wife, Joni, on Friday, saying she had been diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease.

"As part of her prognosis she has been advised to de-stress her life," he said. "Now is the time for me to step back. It's been an honor."

Buyer, 51, is the top Republican on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. He was the committee's chairman for two years before Democrats won the House majority in the 2006 election.

He has faced questions in recent months about a private scholarship foundation he created that had raised more than $880,000 since 2003 without awarding any scholarships. He has defended his handling of the foundation, but didn't mention it during Friday's announcement and didn't take any questions.

Buyer represents Indiana's heavily Republican 4th District, which stretches from the Lafayette area, through the western and southern suburbs of Indianapolis to Bedford. He won re-election in 2008 with 60 percent of the vote even as Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1964.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012902150.html




A Mulligan for Ethically Challenged GOP Rep?


Indiana Republican Rep. Steve Buyer formed the Frontier Foundation in 2003 to provide scholarships to students in his state—and since then his charity has raised an impressive $880,000 in corporate donations. Unfortunately, none of that money has found its way to needy undergrads. It has, however, paid for a lot of Buyer's swanky golf junkets. Speaking recently with CBS Evening News about his foundation, the nine-term congressman—a graduate of the Citadel with a degree in business administration and Frontier's "honorary chairman"—suggested that he "was so focused on making sure that we were legal, that I probably didn't pay as close attention as I should have on, quote, appearances."

And the appearances aren't pretty. After a thorough review of Frontier's tax filings, the government accountability organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has recommended that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) investigate Buyer and what they refer to as his "so-called charity." CREW alleges Buyer has used Frontier "to foot golf fundraisers at exclusive resorts where he hobnobs with corporate donors—who also contribute to his campaign committee and leadership ." In 2008, the most recent year for which tax returns were available, the foundation wrote off over $25,000 in expenses for "meals" and "travel for fund-raising." These fundraising outings got the golf-loving Republican onto the links at Disney World, the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, and the Phoenix-area Boulders resort.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/republican-rep-steve-buyers-ethics-mulligan



Wishing his wife the best in her battle.

[aquart]

1. Who's running for the seat?

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. There is a Democratic candidate in the video

[rurallib]

3. We aree working on a scholarship fund for needy kids

In 5 years we have gotten about $150,000.
Wish he would share some of his fundraising secrets.
Maybe he sells something

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. The article detials more of their family values....

Deeper into the article:
"both his son and daughter were paid to serve as directors at the charity, which until recently shared its headquarters with the congressman's campaign office.
Buyer's son was also hired directly out of college to lobby for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association. "

[democracy1st]

5. also dixiegrrrrl he could care less if everyone has a opportunity to purchase affordable insurance!

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Well, tis good tht one way or the other, he is gone.

He will be off the Commerce Comm. where he can no longer support pro-insurance laws.

Wonder who will replace him?

[hmorehead]

6. $50.00 to AIDS research if this guy isn't in court and going to jail in one year

[spiritual_gunfighter]

7. Using your wife's illness as cover to drop out of the race

because you are under investigation. What a true Republican he is.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. This should have been all over the M$M all week

with headlines like "Is the GOP losing its momentum?" or "The Republican incumbent exit accelerates." or "Ethics allegations continue to plague key GOP members.". But of course these types of headlines are only applied to Democrats. :eyes:

[asdjrocky]

9. What a phony piece of shit.

[indy legend]

11. Boo-hoo yer

It doesn't really matter who runs for this seat. This is Indiana so 75% of the idiots here will replace this piece of shit with another GOP piece of shit. Unfortunatly Indiana is about 30 years behind the rest of the country so by 2040 maybe the people here will have figured out that the Republican party has screwed things up almost beyond repair, but even then I wouldn't count on it. I seldom meet anyone in this hell hole who has ever formulated a thought that Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, or some blithering idiot like Sara Palin didn't tell them to have. BTW I'll go out on a limb and guess Buyer's wife has access to good quality health care and affordable insurance, unlike most of the tea-bagin fools around here who wake up every morning trying to figure out how to stop the people who are actually trying to help their asses. Just like every other gutless rupublican who ends up steping in it he will cry his phoney tears and hide behind his wife and use her as a human sheild, and hoosier voters will say,oh poor steve.

[demigoddess]

14. have to wonder if you aren't right. Some people we know there thought that

if Obama's health care bill went through they would lose their Medicare!!

[hmorehead]

12. His $800,000.00 retirement fund can't be allowed to stand, this is worse stealing postage stamps.

[dencol]

13. Adios! This guy is a terrible person.

He was my representative when I was in college, so I wrote him expressing concern that the lack of equal protection for gays under Indiana law was driving a lot of us out of the state. I expected a form letter, if I received any response at all. Instead I got a nasty email suggesting that I had no business in the state and the state subsidies were wasted on me. Indeed, it was a waste. Because of people like him, I left and never plan on going back to live.

[burning rain]

15. Arguably done in by Rachel Maddow!

She did a good bit of reporting on Buyer's evident chicanery. Excellent news!