| From The Statesman, we are told that Texas will no longer employ 2 private D.C. lobbying firms, following concerns that the two were connected to the scandal's of Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff.
Gov. Rick Perry had hired Cassidy & Associates and The Federalist Group a rate of $15,000 a month each to push Texas priorities in Congress, even though the state already has its own taxpayer-funded Office of State-Federal Relations.
The contracts would have run through August and totaled $1.3 million dollars. But the contacts came under fire last year when Texas' Democratic members of Congress questioned the close ties of some of the firms' associates to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was convicted on charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.
It is amazing how the wedge that continues to dislodge Republicans from their stronghold of power is the very corruption that had built their dynasty. |
| This topic is no new subject here on BOR. Way back in March, one reader noted:
The Jack Abramoff scandal shows that the past few years have been lucrative for certain GOP friendly lobbyists. Did you know that since 2003, the State of Texas has had outside lobbyists under contract?
Texans quickly began to wonder why Texas should have an Office for State and Federal Relations as well as two private lobbying firms? Furthermore, why in 2003, at the height of Republican domination, with Former Governor Bush in the White House, would Texas need freelance lobbying firms?
Regardless, leading Republicans hired Cassidy & Associates and The Federalist Group, paying $30,000 in Texan taxpayer dollars each month.
Months later, a staff writer expressed fears that beyond the private lobbyists, Governor Perry was seeking to assume full control of the OSFR, noting that in July Perry's office recommended legislators to:
1. Abolish the Office of State-Federal Relations as an independent state agency and restructure it within the Office of the Governor.
2. Authorize the Office to contract with federal level government relations consultants and establish clear contracting guidelines in statute.
It is from such assertions of unilateral authority that the rising opposition of honorable government have risen. From lawsuits leveled against fast-tracking of Coal Plant permits, to the rejection of private lobbyists, Texans have grown determined to resist such policies of irreverence and greed.
To illustrate my point, here is a line from a DMN article out of Washington this morning:
WASHINGTON - Summoned by Texas Democrats angry after years of being stiff-armed and targeted for political extinction, Gov. Rick Perry quietly came to Washington for a clear-the-air meeting Friday morning. He got an earful - about redistricting and about the need to change his attitude and start cooperating.
As Democrats become emboldened by election victories and revelations of GOP corruption, the long list of Republican failures will continue to reveal and undo themselves. As passionate observers, we can only sit by and say, "I told ya so." |
