Republicans Gone Wild

By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon Magazine

Hardly anyone in the Republican Party, in Congress or at the White House, seems to recall ever having met Jack Abramoff. Collective amnesia has suddenly descended upon the capital. The super-lobbyist, whose plea bargain with prosecutors requires the extensive naming of names of members of Congress, staffers, ex-staffers, lobbyists, friends, colleagues and his own personal assistants, is spending his days racking his memory for details of their relationships that may become the basis for bills of indictment.

[snip] In his brazenness, extravagance and heedlessness, Abramoff was one of a kind. Almost all lobbyists earning the kind of money he raked in follow the Washington rule of melting into the scenery. But Abramoff is not simply unique; he is also symptomatic. Abramoff's crimes are not illustrations of Washington generically gone haywire. He was not an accident waiting to happen. Nor was he just the latest in a dime-a-dozen scandals. Nor does he represent the vice of both parties. Above all, what he is not is a lobbyist who "bought Washington."

[snip] Abramoff has been an integral part of the Republican political machine that has flourished since the 1994 takeover. He has created vast slush funds at the disposal of DeLay (for example, the U.S. Family Network, financed by Russian oil tycoons), worked hand in glove with DeLay's political operatives, and supported the Republican congressional leadership with funds and favors. Abramoff's lobbying and politics are inextricable, one and the same, allowing him to simultaneously serve as a valuable member of the Republican machine and be out for himself. He was not the most significant player; nor was his tens of millions more money than bigger figures made. (Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and former senior partner of a major Washington law firm, and currently governor of Mississippi, comes to mind.) But Abramoff, more than those with more influence or wealth, has the distinction of being the culmination of the recent history of the Republican Congress.

[snip] Once Bush was elected, the Republican Congress, especially the House, became his essential prop of power. In the House, there is no actual legislative process. The workweek is typically only two days, like that of a small, minor state legislature. The Rules Committee forbids members from altering bills on the floor. Votes are blocked on bills that have bipartisan support, such as an extension of unemployment benefits that is opposed by a majority of the Republicans. Bills are crafted in the dead of night, behind closed doors, by a select group of Republican leaders, often without floor debate. The Boston Globe, in a 2004 series on the influence of lobbyists, reported that "on the Medicare and energy bills, businesses and other groups who reported lobbying on the two measures spent a staggering $799,091,391 in efforts to influence lawmakers, frequently employing former members of Congress, former staff members, and relatives of lawmakers to lobby on the bills." In addition, the Globe reported, the Republican Congress added "3,407 'pork barrel' projects to appropriations bills for this year's federal budget, items that were never debated or voted on beforehand by the House and Senate and whose congressional patrons are kept secret."

[snip] This month, DeLay resigned his post as majority leader under the strain of his criminal trial in Texas and the Abramoff revelations. In Texas, DeLay has been indicted for illegally siphoning corporate funds into state political campaigns. By using his political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, as a conduit, he financed races in the Texas Legislature; then the Legislature, at his prompting, redrew congressional districts, removing Democrats from their seats and padding the Republican majority in the House. Last month, the Washington Post disclosed that Justice Department lawyers had found that DeLay's scheme violated the Voting Rights Act, disenfranchising black and Hispanic voters, but Bush administration officials overruled them.

The Abramoff affair is only at its start, and numerous members of the Congress and prominent Republican lobbyists and operatives may well and soon be ensnared. Behind closed doors, Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon, DeLay's former communications director, are singing.

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