The Washington Post 02/07/12
“Capitol Assets: Some legislators send millions to group connected to their relatives”
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD)-
A supporter of the Pentagon program called Starbase that teaches science, math and engineering skills to children in dozens of location around the country. In 2008 Johnson, along with seven other senators added $4 million to the Starbase budget.
Johnson’s wife Barbara was paid an annual salary of $80,000 as a contract employee to evaluate the program. From 2005 to September, she worked for the Spectrum Group, a lobbying and consulting firm in Alexandria that has a $1 million Pentagon contract to monitor Starbase.
Shortly after hiring the senator’s wife, Spectrum filed a lobbying registration form with the House and Senate naming Barbara Johnson as a lobbyist for the company. The form listed Starbase as her only client.
The Senator didn’t think it was necessary to disclose his wife’s employment in certifications filed with the Appropriations Committee because the money he added to the program was technically not an earmark.
Rep. Ed Pastor (D-AZ) –
The Congressman is a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which has jurisdiction over the budget of the National Nuclear Security administration. During the past six years, the congressman has directed the agency to send millions to fund the scholarship program for at-risk high school student headed by his daughter in Arizona. She earns $75,774 a year.
Pastor obtained a $1 million federal grant for the Achieving a College Education program at the Maricopa Community Colleges about four years before his daughter, Laura, was hired as its director in 2005. Since that time, Pastor has earmarked about $4 million from the nuclear agency for the program, record shows.
Pastor said he’s proud of the earmarks and pointed out that he has sent money to educational programs across his congressional district in Phoenix.
The Arizona Republic reported in 2007 that Laura Pastor was not the highest – ranked candidate for the position but had received a salary at the top of the pay scale. The paper also discovered that an equal-opportunity investigator had warned college officials that “we will not be able to totally defend the hiring decision.”
Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee ( D-Tex)-
The Representative has championed millions in earmarks to the University of Houston while her husband, Elwyn C. Lee, has helped to run the school as a senior administrator. “We greatly appreciate the Congresswomen’s support over the years and hope that she can help us again this year with these requests,” according to internal e-mail from a school official to a staff assistant.
Elwyn Lee has worked at the university since 1978, twenty years later; he has risen to a dual administrator, Vice President of Student Affair and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs. Last March, he was named the university’s vice president for community relations and institutional access.
Since 1994, his salary has almost double to $210,491 per year.
Jackson Lee took office in 1995. She has helped obtain four congressional earmarks for the school totaling about $5.3 million since 2009.
Last fiscal year, according to her web site, she sought $16.5 million more for the university that was blocked by the earmark moratorium.
Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-NJ) –
The Rep. secured six earmarks worth $3.3 million for a scholarship program at Rutgers School of Law in Camden. His wife, Camille Spinello Andrews, is an associate dean of the law school “in charge of enrollment, scholarships and special legal programs,” according to the school’s web site.
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) –
From 2007 to 2009, he requested earmarks worth more $1.5 million for Weber State University in Ogden. Those requests were ultimately secured; the university hired the congressman’s son Shule Bishop as a lobbyist. He serves as director of government relations. The congressman said the earmarks to Weber posed no conflict because none were requested when his son worked there and his son lobbies the state legislature, not Congress.
Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) –
The congressman helped father (former congressman Willliam o. Lipinski) lobbying clients with federal tax dollars. Daniel Lipinski, along with other members of the Illinois congressional delegation, secured $2.5 million in earmarks since taking office for rail projects that are overseen by the Chicago Transit Authority. The CTA is one of William Lipinski’s lobbying clients and has paint he former congressman $766,330 in fees since 20007.
Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) –
Between 2005 and 2010, the congresswoman helped secure $21.9 million in earmarks to six clients of Alcalde & Fay, a lobbying firm that employs her daughter.. During that time the clients paid the firm more than $1 million in fees to represent them before Congress.
Brown was the sole sponsor of $1.79 million in earmarks to the Community Rehabilitation Center, where her daughter, Shantrel Bown worked as a lead lobbyist on behalf of the center, the Florida Times –Union reported in 2010.
Common Sense Review
It is not what you know but who you are related to… Apparently this is the new motto for Congress… There has to be a ethics recall process, when the thieves protect the purse, there will be nothing left in the budget….
No comments:
Post a Comment