Garrett Backer Busted

Since coming to Congress, Representative Scott Garrett has been the darling of the American Conservative Union, receiving a 100 percent rating from the group for the duration of his career. Garrett even acknowledges their stance on issues when explaining his own, most recently with regard to the Cap and Trade Bill. As it turns out, they're simply a corrupt money making proposition.

Politico delivered the bombshell:

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s support in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group’s chairman flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.

To make it even better, Politico posted the letter on-line. Here's a part of the letter from the ACU:

Through our projects and activities, we support and defend the doctrine of original intent of the framers of the Constitution, and we support America’s businesses and entrepreneurs. We are proud to promote the principles of capitalism and the pursuit of the American dream.

[snip]

For the activist contact portion of the plan we will contact over 150,000 people per state multiple times at a cost of $1.39 per name or $2,147,550 to implement the entire program.

[snip]

If we incorporate the targeted, Senator-personalized radio effort into the plan, you can figure an additional $125,000 on average, per state.

Adding the radio, ACU was basically shaking down Fed Ex for $3.4 million. When they didn't pony up, they went with UPS. Of course they deny that now.

One would like to believe after Conservatives got burned by Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff, when they turned out Christians against gambling while being funded by competing casinos, they wouldn't be duped by such systematic fraud. However, the ACU seemed confident they could do this.

That said, the folks over at Sean Hannity's forum are talking about this:

Yes, but the services offered actually took the price tag up to 3.5 million (charges such as $1.39 per name email contacts). The fact that a supposed advocacy group was basically selling their endorsement of a specific issue is ridiculous. What next? Another million if they keyvoted it?

[snip]

They are (were) a pretty damned big deal as far as congressional rankings went especially. If the ACU keyvotes a subject, a lot of people jump.

Key votes are the ones that Garrett's reputation as a 100% voter are based on. As mentioned earlier, Garrett mentions them in his official communications. He also mentions them in his fund raising appeals. If it ever comes to light they've been selling key vote status, there will be even more hell to pay for Garrett and the others that place this organization so highly in their own communications.

If Garrett releases a statement on any of this I'll post it in full.