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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (349571)	9/3/2007 12:10:57 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1572171

"In 2003 Reid was embarassed by a Los Angeles Times article on his son and son-in-law lobbying his office. " Umm, his sons weren't employed by the government. Now, this is sort of scummy, but it is also very common amongst the Republicans. "Reid accepted the tickets at a time that he was pushing legislation that would diminish the power of the commission. The bill passed the Senate, but stalled in the house." Last time I checked, Reid was in the Senate. Has that changed? "According to a February 9, 2006, Associated Press story by John Solomon, Reid wrote letters and had "routine contacts" with lobbying partners and clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff." Umm, so? Having routine contacts with a lobbyist is, sadly, fairly common. "Reid collected donations around the time of each action he took to help Abromoff's clients." And he had a history of helping those clients long before Abramoff ambled onto the scene. Unlike many Republicans who abruptly reversed their stance on an issue when they received a check. Personally, I don't like lobbyists and think they should be banned. But, we have them and it doesn't look good for getting rid of them. " Publicly, Reid supported an increase in minimum wage there, though some have claimed that privately he was working against it." And there is exactly zero proof that he worked against it. The vote did fail, but it was along party lines. "despite the AP story's narrative of lobbyist contacts, there doesn't seem to be any evidence whatsoever that Reid ever took any action on behalf of Abramoff's Marianas clients." Precisely. Unfortunately, Solomon has a reputation for writing poorly researched columns with no supporting evidence. And so on. Other than the son and son-in-law lobbyist, there isn't anything here that is damning. And, unfortunately, the relatives as lobbyists and/or highly paid campaign staffers is very common in Washington. Neither should be allowed, and lobbyists should be a historical footnote. And is a great argument for publicly financed elections.