Good News! The Ohio State Buckeyes are Big Ten Champs!!! Go Bucks! Stories from the Tolelo Blade and the Columbus Dispatch. Here is an excerpt from the Dispatch: ...The victory gives Ohio State Big Ten championships in men’s basketball, women’s basketball and football in the same school year — a conference first....
BAD NEWS: Lobbying Reform News???? No! Are you kidding? The Republicans won't make any dramatic changes to contributions made by lobbyists.
The LA Times has an article that indicates that Republican lawmakers can talk about lobbyist reforms but they have few plans for reform. Republicans have become addicted to the money from lobbyists. Here is an excerpt from the LA Times:
...Figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that studies political fundraising, illustrate the growing importance of lobbyists in producing donations.
The group found that lobbyists' contributions to 2004 congressional candidates totaled $22 million — nearly five times as much as a decade earlier. And that figure does not include the substantial amounts that lobbyists persuaded others to give.
Many lawmakers and their aides say they see nothing wrong with relying heavily on lobbyists for fundraising help, so long as contributions are disclosed.
"From the beginning of the Republic, lawmakers have interacted with people who lobby," said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), a member of the House GOP leadership. "Either you abide by the law [regulating such relationships] or you don't..."
Why does Pryce have so many fundraisers that are purely for lobbyists? Is she addicted to the money and perks provided by moneyed lobbyists? According to Open Secrets, Pryce gets only 31.5% of her contributions from individuals, and 67.3% comes from PACs.
Really Bad News-----We now know where Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce (OH-15) stands on the Dubai Ports question: We would call her stand a sell-out. Shame!
PRYCE VOTES TO QUASH MANDATORY CONGRESSIONAL VOTE
ON DUBAI PORTS DEAL
KILROY: “Congress must have the opportunity to vote on the Dubai port deal.
Pryce’s vote to block an up or down vote defies common sense.”
(Columbus, Ohio)- Franklin County Commissioner and Democratic Congressional Candidate Mary Jo Kilroy assailed Deborah Pryce’s vote last Thursday to block Democratic efforts to require a vote on a plan mandating a Congressional up or down vote on the sale of American port operations to Dubai Ports World following a forty-five day review.
“Congress must have the opportunity to vote on the Bush administration's plan to outsource the management of our nation’s ports to the government of Dubai,” Kilroy said. “Deborah Pryce claims she favors requiring such a vote, but the first chance she got to weigh in on guaranteeing a Congressional vote on the deal, she voted against it. Ohioans send their Congressmen and women to Washington to provide leadership and to represent their views. But when it comes to protecting our ports, Pryce doesn’t even want to require a Congressional vote, so that there is no official record of what her point of view is...”