{"id":6716,"date":"2006-02-27T10:36:33","date_gmt":"2006-02-27T15:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6716"},"modified":"2006-02-27T10:36:33","modified_gmt":"2006-02-27T15:36:33","slug":"i-think-this-is-called-scalping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/i-think-this-is-called-scalping\/","title":{"rendered":"I think this is called ‘scalping’"},"content":{"rendered":"

DC’s MCI Center will host some of this year’s Sweet 16 NCAA men’s basketball tournament in a few weeks, and tickets have already sold out. One lawmaker is fortunate enough to have acquired a few tickets, however, and he’s willing to sell them — at the right price<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Rep. Thomas Reynolds of New York, a key member of the House Republican leadership] is soliciting $2,000 a person to provide tickets for the March 24 tournament session that are sold by the NCAA for $65 apiece. “Tickets are very limited,” says the letter of invitation, “so please RSVP as soon as possible.”<\/p>\n

Although Reynolds is chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the basketball money will fund TOMPAC, Reynolds’ leadership political action committee that he uses to make contributions to selected candidates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I’ve been to a few sporting events and concerts, and I’ve seen lots of people selling tickets outside an arena for more than the stated ticket price. In fact, I think there’s a name for it: “scalping.” The last time I checked, it’s illegal.<\/p>\n

In this case, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee is selling college basketball tickets for more than 30 times face value. What’s more, he’s putting this offer in writing<\/i>, and sending it around to contributors. Isn’t this the kind of thing the DC police department frowns upon?<\/p>\n

Of course, when it comes to congressional Republicans, the nation would be lucky if scalping were their most serious legal transgression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DC’s MCI Center will host some of this year’s Sweet 16 NCAA men’s basketball tournament in a few weeks, and tickets have already sold out. One lawmaker is fortunate enough to have acquired a few tickets, however, and he’s willing to sell them — at the right price. [Rep. Thomas Reynolds of New York, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}