Just over a month ago, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), embarrassed and confused about his leadership role in the Republicans’ “K Street Project,” said he would no longer participate in the meetings with lobbyists. It was a promise that didn’t last long.
After saying in January that he would end his regular meetings with lobbyists, Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), the third-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, has continued to meet with many of the same lobbyists at the same time and on the same day of the week.
Santorum, whose ties to Washington lobbyists have been criticized by his Democratic challenger, suspended his biweekly encounters on Jan. 30. His decision came as Democrats named him as their top target in November’s Senate races, and after the guilty plea of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff to charges of conspiring to corrupt public officials.
But in the month since his announcement, Santorum has held two meetings attended by the same core group of lobbyists, and has used the sessions to appeal for campaign aid, according to participants. Both of those meetings were convened at the same time as the previous meetings — 8:30 a.m. — on the same day of the week — Tuesday — and they lasted for about as long as the earlier meetings — one hour.
Santorum’s defense is that the meetings aren’t technically “K Street Project” meetings; they’re just meetings held at the same time every week, in which Santorum talks with powerful lobbyists about fundraising, political employment, the concerns of the lobbyists’ corporate clients, and the senator’s re-election campaign. And while this is the exact description of the meetings Santorum vowed not to attend anymore, it’s different because…well, because Santorum says so.
One subtle change is that the meetings haven’t been in the Capitol anymore. The first was held about three blocks away, at the headquarters of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the second was held around the corner from that building, at the Heritage Foundation. Mark Kleiman raised a really good point: the Heritage Foundation may be a conservative think-tank/powerhouse, but it’s also a tax-exempt organization. Under federal tax law, Heritage probably isn’t supposed to host the kind of meetings in which corporate lobbyists “help Santorum’s reelection effort.”
Nevertheless, Santorum probably didn’t need yet another embarrassing revelation about a) his dishonesty; and b) his cozy relationship with DC’s lobbying industry. And yet, he has one anyway.