Reply #2: Blunt Not Fit for Leadership in a Reform Era ... Corrupting Big-Money Politics

[L. Coyote]

Public Citizen: "Blunt Not Fit for Leadership in a Reform Era"

Jan. 13, 2006
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2111

Rep. Blunt Not Fit for Leadership in a Reform Era, Represents More of Corrupting Big-Money Politics, New Public Citizen Report Shows

Blunt Has Strong Ties to Lobbyists and Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay, Doled Out Favors to Campaign Contributors, Accepted Corporate-Funded Travel and More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Roy Blunt ... is unfit for leadership because he represents more of the same corrupting, big-money politics that the American public has become disgusted with and that many reformers in Congress are trying to clean up, a new Public Citizen report shows.

The report, Rep. Roy Blunt: Ties to Special Interests Leave Him Unfit to Lead, details how much money Blunt has collected from lobbyists and corporate political action committees (PACs), the favors he has done for contributors, the trips he or candidates he has paid expenses for have taken on corporate jets, and how members of his staff have gone to work for major corporations that later donated thousands of dollars to Blunt’s political committees. The report also delves into the unsettling nature of Blunts’ ties to the fundraising apparatus of indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and admitted felon and former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. ........

Added Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, which produced the report, “Rep. Blunt’s tenure in Congress has been marked by exchanges of favors between himself and special interests and a deep embrace of lobbyists. He is an architect of today’s sleazy, big-money politics, not the agent of change that Congress so desperately needs right now to regain credibility with the public.”

Main findings of the report are: ..........
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REPORT: http://www.citizen.org/congress/govt_reform/ethics/congethics/articles.cfm?ID=14852