Lobbying Plan Was Central to
GOP's
Political Strategy
Abramoff
was key to the 'K Street Project,'
designed to extend the party's
influence. Changes are urged to
avoid 'huge black eye.'
By Janet Hook and Mary
Curtius
Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON
- The corruption investigation
surrounding
lobbyist
Jack
Abramoff
shows the significant political
risk that Republican leaders
took when they adopted what had
once seemed a brilliant strategy
for dominating Washington:
turning the K Street lobbying
corridor into a cog of the GOP
political machine.
Abramoff
thrived in the political climate
fostered by GOP leaders,
including Rep. Tom DeLay
(R-Texas), who have methodically
tried to tighten the links
between the party in Congress
and business
lobbyists,
through what has become known as
the "K Street Project."
GOP leaders, seeking to harness
the financial and political
support of K Street,
urged
lobbyists
to support their conservative
agenda, give heavily to
Republican politicians and hire
Republicans for top trade
association jobs.
Abramoff
obliged on every front, and his
tentacles of influence reached
deep into the upper echelons of
Congress and the Bush
administration.
Now,
in the wake of a plea agreement
in which
Abramoff
will cooperate in an
influence-peddling investigation
that might target a number of
lawmakers, some Republicans are
saying that the party will need
to take action to avoid being
tarnished.
"This is going to be a huge
black eye for our party," said
Rep. Ray
LaHood
(R-Ill.), a senior member close
to House Speaker J. Dennis
Hastert
(R-Ill.). "Denny's
going to have to be very tough
and really speak out against
people who are indicted. He's
going to have to do it quickly
and decisively and frequently."
Hastert
moved Tuesday to inoculate
himself from the scandal by
announcing that he would give to
charity about $60,000 he
received from
Abramoff
and his clients. He is the
latest of several lawmakers who
have returned or redirected
money they received from
Abramoff-related
sources.
One Senate Republican aide,
speaking on condition of
anonymity, said Republicans soon
will unveil ethics reform
legislation in an effort to
blunt criticism from Democrats
that they have fostered a
"culture of corruption" in
Washington.
The controversy may also
increase the prospect that
Republicans will shake up their
leadership after Congress
reconvenes at the end of
January. House Republican
moderates are calling for new
leadership elections to
permanently replace DeLay, who
stepped down temporarily as
majority leader after he was
indicted in an unrelated case.
"Let's get a permanent
leadership and begin moving
forward and overcome the
problems that are on the table
right now," said Sarah
Chamberlain
Resnick,
executive director of the
Republican Main Street
Partnership, a caucus of GOP
moderates in Congress.
Conservatives are worried about
possible political fallout for
all Republicans, not just those
who might be implicated, once
Abramoff
starts cooperating with
prosecutors.
"This is the one thing that
could result in a change in who
controls the Congress," said
Paul
Weyrich,
a conservative activist.
Abramoff
pleaded guilty Tuesday to
corruption charges in connection
with allegations that he bilked
his Indian tribe clients and
conspired to bribe a member of
Congress. He also will plead
guilty to charges in a separate
case in Miami,
in connection with a deal to buy
a floating casino fleet,
SunCruz
Casinos.
Although
Abramoff
admitted Tuesday to illegal
conduct in some of his dealings,
much of what he did to influence
Congress amounted to
larger-than-life versions of
legal practices common among
lobbyists.
Abramoff
did not just ply lawmakers with
meals; he opened a restaurant
and plied them with his
meals. He did not simply hand
out tickets to sporting events;
he offered access to several
luxury
skyboxes.
He did not arrange
garden-variety golf outings; he
brought golfers to the world's
most exclusive courses.
"The connections between
Congress, congressional staff
and
lobbyists
have been a problem for many
years," said Dennis Thompson,
author of the book "Ethics in
Congress."
"In the last few years it's
gotten out of control," Thompson
said. "But
Abramoff
has taken it to a new level."
For investigators, the question
is whether any lawmakers
returned
Abramoff's
favors by using their offices to
benefit him or his clients,
which could violate federal law.
Critics of the campaign finance
system say it would be a kind of
rough justice if Republicans
were hobbled by their
relationships with a
lobbyist,
because they worked so hard to
increase coordination between
their party and K Street.
Republicans said their efforts
were no different than what
Democrats did for years to raise
money and organize support from
their constituencies, including
labor unions and civil rights
advocates. But Democratic
critics said the GOP went much
further in linking political
money to policy outcomes, and
that
Abramoff
was a master at maneuvering in a
system that required
lobbyists
to "pay to play" on Capitol
Hill.
"Jack
Abramoff
is a classic example of the
pay-to-play system carried out
in the extreme," said Fred
Wertheimer,
head of Democracy 21, a
campaign-finance watchdog group.
According to a study by the
nonpartisan Center for
Responsive Politics, 296 members
of Congress since 1999 have
received contributions from
Abramoff, his Indian tribe
clients or
SunCruz
Casinos. Abramoff and his wife
contributed $204,253 ? all of it
to Republicans.
In addition,
Abramoff
also leaned on his Indian
clients to give to key
lawmakers. The center found that
Abramoff's
clients gave almost $4.2
million, more than half to
Republicans.
His most famous golf outings
took members, including DeLay
and Rep. Bob
Ney
(R-Ohio), to the fabled
St.
Andrews
course in Scotland. Such trips
are against House rules if they
are paid for by a
lobbyist.
DeLay and
Ney
said they believed the trips
were properly paid for by a
nonprofit group, but prosecutors
are reportedly looking at
whether
Abramoff
initially picked up some of the
expenses.
Favors done for DeLay and Ney
have drawn particular scrutiny
because they took aggressive
steps to help Abramoff or his
clients on issues that seemed
remote from their own
constituents' interests. When
Abramoff was trying to buy the
Florida
floating casino fleet,
Ney
inserted a statement in the
Congressional Record critical of
Abramoff's
rival.
Abramoff had been hired to
stall legislation raising the
minimum wage for the
U.S.-administered
Northern
Mariana
Islands in the Pacific Ocean,
and DeLay was credited with
helping him do so. DeLay also
was an ally in
Abramoff's
effort to fight legislation to
allow the taxation of Indian
tribe gaming revenue.
DeLay and
Ney,
like other lawmakers who helped
Abramoff, said they took action
on the merits, not because they
received favors from him.
The last time Washington
lobbying came under such broad
legal scrutiny was in the
Abscam
scandal of 1980, when an FBI
sting operation led to the
conviction of seven members of
Congress on corruption charges.
That episode was widely viewed
as a scandal involving isolated
individuals, the proverbial "bad
apples."
But
some critics of the current
campaign finance system say that
the
Abramoff
scandal could have broader
significance if it is seen as an
indictment of a corrupt
political system, not just
individuals.
