Some say this character was modeled after the good congresscritter.
Posted on 01/19/2006 12:58:30 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AP) - A high-ranking California Republican congressman preserved funding for a defense project critical to a New York investment company that raised more than $130,000 for him, according to a published report Thursday.
Rep. Jerry Lewis, who now chairs the House Appropriations Committee, denied wrongdoing in response to the USA Today story. He said he had no knowledge of the connection between the investment firm Cerberus Capital Management and the $8.8 billion project to build a secure computer network for the Navy and Marines until he heard about it from USA Today.
"It is absolutely and unequivocally false to suggest that any decision on funding for the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet was in any way based on a lobbyist's request, or as a favor to someone who was donating campaign funds," Lewis said.
"Neither I nor my staff have recommended adding money to this program - all of the funding approved has been included in the president's budget at the request of the Navy," he said.
Lewis, 71, from Redlands, Calif., chaired the Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on defense in 2003, when the House Armed Services Committee voted to cut 10 percent from the 2004 budget for the Navy-Marine computer project.
The year before, the House Appropriations Committee had noted problems with the program, including cost overruns and delays.
Lewis himself was quoted in The Washington Post saying he wasn't satisfied with the project's progress. He also voiced concern about the involvement of MCI, which was a major subcontractor on the project but was involved in an accounting scandal that caused it to file for bankruptcy in the summer of 2002.
But when the defense appropriations subcommittee, which controls defense dollars, passed its 2004 defense spending bill on June 16, 2003, money for the Navy-Marine Corps computer network was preserved.
Lewis said he changed his mind and backed the funding because the Navy asserted that the program's management had improved. On June 26, the full Appropriations Committee also approved the funding.
By that time, Cerberus, a hedge fund that invests mainly in companies in or near bankruptcy, owned more than $140 million in stock and bonds of MCI WorldCom.
On July 7, Cerberus executives held a fundraiser for Lewis in New York. Company officers, spouses, and associates gave Lewis' political action committee, the Future Leaders PAC, nearly $133,000 that night and in the following weeks.
Lewis said the Navy project never was discussed. "I have never had a discussion - in any context - with representatives of Cerberus or WorldCom regarding the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet," his statement said.
The day after the fundraiser, the House passed Lewis' defense spending bill that preserved funding for the Navy project. The money remained intact in the final House-Senate version of the spending bill that Lewis helped negotiate.
Lewis, meanwhile, was preparing his bid to become House Appropriations Committee chairman - a contest in which fundraising is key. Lewis' Future Leaders PAC gave $407,000 to 69 House candidates in the 2004 election. The Cerberus-related money amounted to nearly a third of that amount.
Lewis told USA Today that Cerberus' fundraising "played a very significant role" in the fact he won the post a year ago.
Campaign finance watchdogs raised questions about the timing of the donations.
It "looks like influence buying," said Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. The group Campaign for a Cleaner Congress, which opposes corporate lobbying, sent a letter to the Justice Department on Thursday asking for an investigation of whether bribery statutes were violated.
And the sun rose in the east this morning. I'm pretty sure it will set in the west this evening, too.
Show me an elected official anywhere, at any level of government, who doesn't back projects critical to donors/constituents.
Unfortunately, this clown represents our district here in California...sounds to me like he rivals Ted "Pork Barrel" Stevens from Alaska that builds bridges to nowhere and marble airports as shrines to himself!!
Our republic has a systemic problem which lacks an essential ingredient to diminish the politician's apparently natural yearning: - Participation by an informed electorate.
Encourage every Republican you know to participate on this forum. The learning never ends.
fyi re: 2 orgs. mentioned in article
Center for Responsive Politics (aka OpenSecrets.org) in Washington.
http://www.crp.org/about/index.asp
The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy. The Center conducts computer-based research on campaign finance issues for the news media, academics, activists, and the public at large. The Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry, and a more responsive government.
---
Campaign for a Cleaner Congress
http://www.cleanercongress.org/
A project of American Family Voices
Campaign for a Cleaner Congress works to expose how corporate lobbying has corrupted our democratic system, and to explain how simple reforms can get Americans the cleaner Congress they deserve - starting with an independent counsel to investigate House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's reign of corruption.
---
American Family Voices
http://www.americanfamilyvoices.org/
American Family Voices was founded in 2000 to be a strong voice for middle and low income families on economic, health care, and consumer issues. Since our founding, we have educated the public and pushed for legislation on a number of vital issues to make American families more secure.
Some say this character was modeled after the good congresscritter.
And now the jump. Its the latest and greatest in the series of, "lets make illegal that which has been legal forever." Is pork barrel spending loathsome? You betcha. Is it illegal. No way. Yet the MSM will now schill for the dems and make every pork project equivalent to the Culture of Corruption. So there is the jump, legal activities (albeit loathsome) that BOTH parties engage in will be made to look 1)like something Republicans and Republicans only do; and 2) criminal.
Funny, I have missed the stories starring our good friend Murtha and his little defense spending scandal. Hmmm, any minute now USA Today should be breaking that one out.
hey, he was just on an episode of TJ Hooker (DVD rental).
Our republic has a systemic problem which lacks an essential ingredient to diminish the politician's apparently natural yearning: - Participation by an informed electorate.
---
Trust But Verify
has become
Trust Me.
and sadly, many will.
A distinction without a difference to every elected official. (Please don't read this as making excuses for them; merely stating the obvious.)
Duke Cunningham is going to have some company.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-lewis11may11,1,4263398.story?page=1&coll=la-headlines-politics
Lewis Surfaces in Probe of Cunningham
By Peter Pae, Times Staff Writer
May 11, 2006
Federal prosecutors have begun an investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Californian who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, government officials and others said, signaling the spread of a San Diego corruption probe.
~excerpt
How'd you know?
bump
I have friends in low places.
This and other scandals will resonate all the way to November. I don't see how the dems can keep from taking the House.
The leadership of the Republican party is not liberal or conservative they are crooks.
That is a fact that has become more apparent every day.
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