Shulman Slams Garrett on Abramoff

The campaign of Dennis Shulman sent out quite a press release regarding the ties between Representative Scott Garrett and Jack Abramoff:

“Be it placing a key Countrywide Financial lobbyist on the taxpayer’s payroll as his Chief of Staff, fighting for tax breaks for Big Oil, or holding onto money from indicted Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and disgraced former McCain adviser Phil Gramm, Garrett seems to play a role in every Washington scandal. It’s about time we have a member of Congress who sees his job as fighting scandals, not participating in them,” noted Shulman.

Honestly, I don't understand why Garrett doesn't return the money as a symbolic gesture. Or at least donate a couple grand to charity. We know he's already spent it, but clinging to it doesn't make sense.

What if some crazy radical group sent him money, would he keep that, too? I understand that Garrett doesn't have the greatest fundraising operation in the world, but come on. Where's the principle in holding on to a couple thousand in dirty money?

Will Garrett Return Abramoff Money Now?

Back in 2006, people called on Representative Scott Garrett to return the $1,000 in donations his campaign recieved that were connected to Jack Abramoff. No dice to date, but with Abramoff getting another 4 years, this time directly tied to his Federal lobbying activities, maybe now will be the time.


Abramoff represents all that is wrong with politics today. Four years was way too light a sentence for what he did. The fact that Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist aren't going to jail with him is a travesty of justice. All those who see Garrett as a stand up, independent guy should demand more of their guy than to keep Abramoff's scum money. Granted, at this point that money is long spent, the symbolism of the act wouldn't be lost.

Blast From The Past

Charles Stile of The Record has a great profile of a pillar of the BCRO, Eleanor Nissley. Ms. Nissley was instumental in my attending and one of the people I got to know a bit when I went to San Diego in 1996. Granted, she probably wouldn't know me if she fell over me at this point, it was great to see she's still involved and still stands for the principles Bergen Republicans stood for back in the day.

Here's a bit of her wisdom she shared with Stile:

Despite the past battles, Nissley said politics were far more civil and less partisan than they are today. County chairmen from both parties often socialized and collaborated on relief efforts for a family who lost their home in a fire, for example.

"I feel people are getting lost in the process," she said. "Today it's more about, 'Can I get a job for Aunt Tillie?' " she said. "Patronage is not the name of the game. People are the name of the game."

I hope enough young Republicans, and Democrats for that matter, will look at Nissley's example as how politics used to be and can be now thanks to people like her.

Help Wanted: NJ Ethics Panel

PolitickerNJ has an interesting story about the problems our legislative leaders are having a problem filling the newly created ethics panel. Here's how they described part of the problem:

Wright said that DeCroce has not been slacking on the appointments but wants to make sure he puts the right people in the job, given the new committee’s more stringent ethical standards. Several ex-judges they’ve considered, Wright said, refused an appointment because would have had to cut ties with law firms that have business with the state.

It just seems to me they can't be trying very hard. There have to be retired police officers who would consider this. Or maybe those like my father. Not just because he's a minister, but he's been certified in various ethics and conflict resolution disciplines. There are entire programs dedicated to the ethics part, and we have several seminaries in the state.

Then you have the idealistic civic minded individuals like myself who want nothing more than a clean government. Granted, I'd probably have to give up the blog, but for that I'd do it. I'm sure there'd be no shortage of volunteers who want clean government who would put aside whatever it is they're doing to serve.

The idea that these guys can't fill this committee is garbage.
You could probably walk into an elementary school and find enough students with a proper sense of right and wrong to be on the panel.

The problem is that they don't want to be held accountable for their actions. If we're going to turn this State around, we need to have a strong watchdog. The idea we as voters, taxpayers and residents have to wait until the US Attorney steps in is ridiculous.

Only in NJ, I suppose.

Garrett Hires Former Lobbyist

Well, this is interesting.

Representative Scott Garrett has lost long time Chief of Staff Michelle Presson, who was without a doubt a soundbite flamethrower. I had great respect for her ability to get Garrett's point of view (or maybe her own) across in about 10 words.

Replacing her, according to Herb Jackson, is Amy D. Smith. A veteran of Capitol Hill, Ms. Smith has also worked for Senator Bob Dole and Rep. Brian Billbray. As also noted by Jackson, Ms. Smith was a lobbyist. Apparently, it was for the firm Bartlett, Bendall, & Kadesh, LLC for a few years.

Among the firm's current roster of clients includes folks like Freddie Mac, NBC Universal, the Motion Picture Association of America, and a slew of banks and financial firms from Morgan Stanley to Washington Mutual. Kind of makes this quote from Jackson even more interesting if that was the firm:

Now she's moved to Garrett's team, where his committee assignments on financial services and budget fit her interests.

Ethics: In A Heart Beat

With this week's passage of HR 895, creating an independent ethics panel to monitor the actions of House members down in Washington, reformers were given a bittersweet victory and partisans were given soundbite fodder.

Representative Scott Garrett voted against the bill and gave Herb Jackson of the Record this soundbite:

"I agree our current system is broken," Garrett said. "Unfortunately, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi failed to bring a bi-partisan solution to the table and chose to put forward a Commission that does not solve the current problems. Instead, it would allow anonymous partisan complaints to clog the system and lead to increased mud-slinging."

The reason this new Ethics panel became a necessity is because of the gentleman's agreement put in place about not bringing charges, for fear that they could lead to partisan attack. This effectively led to the old panel being shut down while Representatives Tom DeLay, Randall "Duke" Cunningham, Don Young and William Jefferson taking graft and corruption to a new level.

In an effort to have a bi-partisan jury of sorts, both the Speaker and Minority Leader must concur on the panel members. Unfortunately, Rep. John Boehner has a bit of a cynical view of the prospects for the committee, as relayed to The Washington Times.

"I can't imagine anyone in their right mind would want to serve on this outside panel because of the fighting that's going to occur, not by members but by partisan groups on both sides who are going to want to file frivolous complaints."

I'd do it in a heartbeat, and there are likely a ton of other good government minded individuals who would agree to serve their Country in this capacity if asked. I really hope Boehner won't sabotage this entire process because of cynicism.

It should be interesting to see how this pans out, but one has to hope we're going to head in the right direction in terms of ethics.

Congress Gets A Raise?

I always get annoyed that those within the halls of Congress get an automatic raise, unless they vote against it. It seems to be a bi-partisan effort to prevent such a vote from even making it to the floor.

Congress, through inaction, gave themselves a 2.5% raise. That's more than people living on Social Security received.

The adjustment will increase the average monthly Social Security retirement benefit by $24, to $1,079. It is based on the rise in the consumer price index in the third quarter, a figure the Labor Department released yesterday.

With Congress getting $4,000 more, their monthly increase is $333.33. That's nearly the car payment for a Cadillac CTS. Meanwhile, seniors are barely getting a half a tank of gas.

Leading By Example

With a dust up over some duel office holders not stepping down as they said they would, it's good to see Assemblyman Gary Chiusano keeping his promise to resign his post as a Sussex County Freeholder if elected to the Assembly.

It's always good to see a politician follow through on their pledges.

Garrett: Earmark Blogging with Murder Fantasies

I was intrigued today to read the blog by Representative Scott Garrett about the earmark debate over at Townhall.com. Not once did he say how pleased he was about the reforms he voted against being passed earlier in the year. I suppose he only saves that kind of misleading language for his constituents.

One thing that is a point of concern with Garrett's piece is where he chose to post it. I realize my cross-posting on other sites can put me in with some folks that say some outlandish stuff in the comments section, but I appreciate the dialogue and passion for beliefs. That being said, each site has a certain standard when it comes to their primary content and comments, and I've seen it enforced more than once.

In contrast, Townhall.com is currently playing host to an ongoing story about a group of "Patriots" running around the country hunting "socialists." This group roams around the country and kill US Attorney Johnny Sutton, torture Keith Obermann and Chris Matthews, kill Senator Arlen Specter and other current members of Congress, and mock the Constitution.

Several Republican bloggers have called to have the storyline removed, as well as others in the comments section of the fantasy's posts questioning the legality of it. As of this writing, Townhall has yet to remove the piece. Here's how the Sutton segment ends (remember, this is a current US Attorney):

As a group, we entered the room at approximately 2215. Sutton was hunched over a table studying a map of the region. When he looked up and saw us, his eyes widened into saucers and he blanched, sweat popping out on his forehead. He threw up his hands and started babbling unintelligibly – a huge disappointment coming from a “great” attorney – and at my signal we all fired simultaneously. His head exploded like a ripe melon, thankfully shutting him up for good.

The comment sections on all of the installments I looked at were rather, um, interesting. The Sutton piece includes such things as bonfires fueled by the bodies of liberals convicted by Chief Justice Ann Coulter (who later takes a recurring role) and what caliber bullet you need to effectively kill liberals so they don't live and charge at you like a "RINO".

Whether or not Garrett knew about this is kind of irrelevant. Townhall is very popular with a certain segment of the population, and obviously Garrett's reaching out to them. There are many notable conservatives who contribute to the site, driving traffic and helping them sell advertising. Aparantly, all of that comes without any sort of moral compass or ethical standard. There is a moral and ethical line, and Townhall has crossed it. Until Townhall either removes that story line or Garrett pulls his content from the site, Garrett's sitting right there with them.

My TiVo's Name Will Be SCOTUS

For those that missed it, the Supreme Court dealt a blow yesterday to those of us who want to remove money from politics. At issue was whether or not a special interest group was allowed to run an "issue ad" within 60 days of an election without complying with federal election law reporting requirements. Finding that the election law was a hindrance of speech, special interest groups (corporations, unions, advocacy groups) joined hands with shareholders of DVR manufacturers in rejoicing the SCOTUS.

This decision has a number of negative consequences for the vast majority of Americans. First and foremost is that a lobbyist will once again be able to walk in to a legislator's office with the unregulated expense report regarding how much their client spent to get the legislator in office. I work for one of the best television commercial production houses in the world, and people don't hire us because we're nice people (we're very nice). They hire us because we're damn good at what we do and they're expecting a return on their investment (a great ad to help them sell product). When it comes to election expenditures, special interests expect the same: votes for dollars spent. A few hundred thousand in exchange for a multi-million dollar earmark is a pretty good return on investment. A few hundred million for a multi-billion dollar no bid contract is even better.

Another issue is accountability for the ads. By declaring the 60 day rule unconstitutional, special interests won't have to identify who is paying for the ad. While many groups will want to have their name put on an ad (because it helps fundraising); those putting out false attack ads can come up with fluffy names for their vitriol, and if the truth ever comes out as to who did the ad the election will likely be over. It now rests on the Quality Assurance departments of the networks to determine if an ad is true or not, as they will be liable for running false advertising and also liable for bias for not running an ad even if it's patently false. I have a friend that handles that for a network, and they just "loved" it when I pointed that out last night.

This decision also bolsters the power of incumbency and aspirations of corrupt challengers. On one hand, an incumbent will no longer have to raise gobs of cash to compete, as they'll be able to place a call to a special interest group that loves them and say they need some ads. That's illegal; as it is coordinated communication, however don't think it doesn't happen. On the flip side, a challenger who has already sold their soul will be able to do the same in the event the incumbent doesn't play ball with the special interests.

Probably the most frustrating aspect of the decision, for me personally, is this virtually eliminates the ability of Independents to compete. Before my fundraising collapsed last year, we had a workable fundraising target to get a run or two of ads on basic cable. I have most of the equipment needed to shoot and edit ads, and had volunteers to direct and crew them. Renting a sound package and the media buy would have been the only expenses, and the media buy was surprisingly affordable. I would have been able to place a hold on advertising time, and then paid for the ads before they ran. All of this would have cost less than $40,000.

I fear that if I did decide to run again next year, and can raise money this time, with every imaginable special interest group now being able to bid on the same time, it will drive prices beyond what a modest Independent campaign can raise. What happens to my speech and that of my potential donors and supporters? How are we protected? The only Independent who may benefit from this ruling is Bloomberg, as now he can spend his personal fortune on organization and his corporation's money on ads.

If you think I'm overstating the consequences, remember that these were all the things that were going on in the 90's that prompted Washington to include the 60 day rule in the McCain-Feingold bill to begin with. The good news is, Congress can now revisit the issue and attempt to make it Constitutional within the SCOTUS ruling. My hope is they have the moral fortitude to get to work on this and they'll take care of it before the end of the year. However, I'm not going to hold my breath, and in the meantime I'm going to find out more about DVRs.

Most political ads are junk, both in production value and content; Elliot Spitzer & Michael Steele are recent exceptions. As much as I love watching a good commercial, is as fast as I change the channel when the average political ad comes on. The idea of the airwaves being over saturated with this pollution is nauseating.

Garrett's Travels

Members of Congress being flown everywhere by private funders is a bone of contention. While some trips have legitimate educational purposes, and all trips are supposed to be related to a Member's duties, it's pretty safe to say that the sponsors want a return on their investment. While The Center for Responsive Politics shows that Rep. Scott Garrett takes relatively few trips compared to others, sometimes the number of the trips can be outweighed by what the sponsors want.

When Herb Jackson of The Record broke the story last July about Garrett traveling around the Pacific rim, the furor over possible ethics violations for having one trip paid for by a foreign agent and reporting trips well past the 30 days required died down pretty quickly. It would be interesting to see what economic benefit the area received from the provisions within the Garrett co-sponsored tax cuts of 2003 that gave foreign companies a competitive advantage raising capital over domestic companies.

In January, Garrett took another trip with an interestingly small price tag: $239. The sponsor was the Emmanuel Foundation, publishers of the Kairos Journal. Garrett was the only member of Congress to attend the Kairos Journal Awards dinner, or at least the only one the Foundation paid for. Kairos sees their mission as providing a ministry to pastors; providing Biblical context to deal with the world's challenges. Since they require ministers to register and be approved to receive this content, I looked at what I could find for free.

After reading their arguments against abortion, contraception, and evolution; as well as commentary on Gov. Elliot Spitzer's intent to legalize gay marriage, and the phrasing of their Biblical support for capitalism; it's pretty safe to say they are a very conservative journal. While their understanding of scripture differs from mine on many points, Garrett's pretty open about his interpretation of faith and from what I've read, this group's a good fit for him. I could see him going to an event like this on his own dime and I wouldn't write about it.

However, he didn't go on his own, he went as part of his "official duties" as our Representative, and as with all privately funded trips, it goes back to what the funders want. This is the first and last paragraph of an essay Kairos deems as a KJ Insight.

“What is your attitude towards politics?” From the beginning—and in the development of the Israelite nation—God was the ruler, and His law and His will was the focal point of political and social life.

[snip]

Nevertheless, the Church should be following the example of the prophets in calling the nation back to a proper relationship with God and to behave as God commands. God’s laws and standards are not just good in themselves, they are also good for us as human beings. So our aim as “salt” and “light” must be to try to bring human politics and law into conformity with God’s will and law. Only in the final “eschaton” will the rule of God be fully known and experienced, but that is no reason for failing in our duty to pray and work for more of God’s rule and will to be followed in political life.

I don't know whether or not Garrett sees his role as our Representative the same way the publishers of Kairos do. However, some insight might be gained from his speech at the March for Life rally in Washington, which happened about a week before this dinner (you can listen to the whole speech here, I did the transcription).

So just as Nehemiah worked to build that wall of stone and rock and wood around
Jerusalem. To build and protect his vulnerable people. So now all of us come here today to Washington to build a wall of law, around our most vulnerable people.

[snip]

Let us follow the word of the scripture. Let us follow after Nehemiah’s example. May we pray that God bless this nation. May God bless our undertaking today. And that we take the actions to carry out our work.

My first instinct is to always say "and exactly whose interpretation of God's law are we using?" As a minister's son growing up in a predominantly Catholic town, I was well aware of differences of interpretation at an early age. I'm very suspect when any group claims to have the monopoly on God's insights, and I know I'm not alone.

Let the Sunshine In

At times, trying to keep up with Representative Scott Garrett is draining. Commonsense stuff and decisions of principle should be no-brainers for Representatives, but not Garrett. Good government practices and openness are things Garrett talks a lot about, but as is often the case when given a chance to back up his words with votes he falls flat on his face. Voters should have guessed something was up when he chose to talk about arranging tours in his weekly newsletter, instead of discussing anything of substance. Now, I've been told when he has time he's gracious enough to conduct the tours himself, but he could have used the newsletter space to discuss why he voted against the clean water bills last week or would vote against the majority of accountability measures that came up this week. The disconnect really brings up one of the fundamental issues I have with his tenure as our Representative: An almost complete lack of accountability.

Maybe I'm too big of an idealist, but this is the information age and the people paying the salary of a Congressman and his staff have a right to know what's going on and more than enough tools exist for him to provide the information. During moments of the campaign when I actually allowed myself to think I might win (these were few), I often thought about the accountability issue. I basically thought about how my Saturdays and Mondays and the allotted District work periods would be spent in the District. Townhall meetings, regional mayors meetings, regional chamber of commerce meetings, visiting every school in the District, etc. Those are the old school techniques with which I'm familiar and are standard (not sure if Garrett does them, but all the good Congresspeople I've known have).

There were also the little things I wanted to do to harness the Internet and bring young folks into the fold. These are things Representatives could and should be doing in this day and age, but painfully few are. After running into so many folks my age and younger who have given up on the process after only having the right to vote for a small number of years, I wanted to find ways to engage more people in the process instead of promoting the institutional indifference we seem to be stuck with. Our generation is getting closer to running the show with each election cycle, and the fewer people engaged in the process, the fewer good leadership choices we'll have down the road and the worse off our nation will be.

While the consistency of his voting makes it relatively easy to guess which way Garrett will vote on our behalf, usually there are no quotes in the Congressional Record, no statements on his website, and no interview with the press explaining why. Other than a parody of his recent votes against increasing protections for whistle blowers, against increasing accountability of the Executive Branch, and against increasing ease of access to information about our government, there is precious little to go on.

To Garrett's credit, he did vote for increasing the transparency of who donates funds to Presidential Libraries (a slick way around the ban on foreign and corporate campaign donations) and for better federal contracting accountability. Unfortunately, I can't even give him a pat on the back for saying the right thing along with doing the right thing (a rarity these days). I'm sure there will be spin forthcoming about protecting taxpayers with his two votes, but what about the other three? On such a fundamental issue as accountability, batting .400 for the week is unlikely to get you into the Hall of Fame and it makes one question whether you believe in a government "for the people, by the people" being accountable to the people.

If Garrett opened up I still wouldn't like the rigidity of his politics, the effect he's having on our District, or the fact he has a blatant disregard for the opinions of the majority of voters in our District. That said, if he opened up and the folks of our District still embraced him, I wouldn't feel like the only reason he's in office is his being a practitioner of the sins of omission and evasion.

Finally, something good to write

During the campaign, I always said you shouldn't get brownie points for doing what you're supposed to as a Representative. Whether that's showing up at ribbon cutting ceremonies, helping non-profits within your District get the support and publicity they need, or voting for universally supported legislation like honoring sports teams for winning their championships. However, after two weeks of voting against working families and Seniors in our District, misrepresenting his ethical stances compared to his votes, and patronizing the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. by not having the integrity to show up in person to any event in his honor; it would seem we're beyond what a Representative should be doing and to hoping that anything good will come from Scott Garrett's next two years in office.

A minuscule step in the right direction was taken when Scott threw our name down as a co-sponsor of HR 14, a bill that strips the pensions of those Members of Congress who are convicted for corruption. It is a Republican bill, introduced by a moderate, as an answer to a weak alternative the Democrats seem to be putting forward that misses a bunch of crimes. My hope is the Democrats will either co-opt this bill or withdraw the weaker version.

The House historically is not very good at cleaning things up themselves, but I think having a solidly moderate Republican introduce this may give it some legs. It will be harder for Scott to argue on this bill's behalf, because he hasn't worked with the Democrats on anything and spends our time on the floor criticizing more than offering constructive alternatives. However, he did put our District down as a co-sponsor of this particular bill and my hope is it goes through.

Taxpayers should not be paying pensions for those who violate the public trust, period.