Just a couple of months ago, as the Abramoff scandal was picking up steam and lawmakers were anxious to recast themselves as champions of reform, the Republicans’ “[tag]K Street Project[/tag]” was seen as Exhibit A in the culture of corruption.
John Boehner campaigned to be House Majority Leader on an anti-K Street Project platform, telling his colleagues, “If I am elected majority leader, there will no longer be a K Street Project, or anything else like it.” Rick [tag]Santorum[/tag], who helped lead the project, was so embarrassed by the initiative that he went into complete denial, telling reporters, “I had absolutely nothing to do — never met, never talked, never coordinated, never did anything — with Grover Norquist and the — quote — K Street Project.” It was untrue, of course, but helped highlight just how radioactive the Project had become.
But as Roll Call noted today, with six weeks before the midterm elections, and Republicans feeling a little panicky, the GOP is up to its old tricks — House Republican leaders and Karl Rove are poised to “mount one final push this week for the financial support of GOP lobbyists.”
Thursday afternoon at the Capitol Hill Club, Rove will join the top six House GOP leaders to address as many as 200 lobbyists, the first large-scale meeting between lobbyists and leaders in recent months.
“This is a straight-out appeal to [lobbyists] to contribute to Republicans — to remind them what Republicans do not only for their specific industries but for the whole business community,” said a GOP leadership aide. The aide added that the leaders would emphasize that “reports of the Republican majority’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, and we’re coming back.”
Several GOP sources said the leadership also would reiterate a warning against giving to Democrats that was conveyed by National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) earlier this month to a smaller group of lobbyists and political action committee directors. As one aide put it, part of Thursday’s message will be, “if you’re hedging your bets you’re making the wrong decision.”
A leadership aide from another office made the same point, saying that if lobbyists give to Democrats, “they might want to think twice about it.”
I think the phrase “veiled threat” was created for just such circumstances.
Indeed, it’s also worth noting that as the desperation within the GOP caucus goes up, their concerns about threatening lobbyists into contributing go down. From a week ago:
A roomful of about 100 high-dollar-donor lobbyists and political action committee directors huddled late last week with Rep. Tom Reynolds (N.Y.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, for an election update and strategy session.
According to one source who was present at the meeting, Reynolds used the election briefing to spread the word that the endangered House GOP will not look favorably on PACs that start “hedging their bets” by upping their contributions to Democrats. The source at the meeting said Reynolds made sure the attendees know that the
NRCC would have no choice but to report back to all House Republicans details of any PACs or companies that shift their giving.
“That’s an old [former Rep. Tom] DeLay (R-Texas) tactic,” said the source, who attended the meeting at the American Trucking Associations on Sept. 14. “Isn’t it that heavy-handed stuff that backfired and got him in trouble?”
Why yes, yes it is. But when a party sees their majority slipping away, little things like ethics and election law somehow start to appear less significant.