  Duncan Hunter hails from inland San Diego County, somewhere abouts Alpine. Pretty desert-type area. It’s a fairly conservative place, but you can’t hold that against him. You can hold his terrible website against him. It’s got to be one of the worst in all of the Congress. Something else you can hold against him: he’s one of the top recipients of lobbying dollars. In fact he's take more money than all but 65 Congressmen in the last year. That puts him at about top 15%. Good Work Duncan ol'boy!
But more specifically, he’s #2 on Van D. Hipp Jr.’s list. Now, who is Van D. Hipp, Jr you might ask? Well good question!
The report from Public Citizen indicates the Alpine Republican is Congress' No. 2 recipient of contributions from Van D. Hipp Jr., chairman of American Defense International, a lobbying group whose clients have included Raytheon Missile Systems, Ruag Munition, Sarnoff Corp. and other defense-related companies. Hipp is profiled in the Public Citizen report because he is among the Hill's top donors to lawmakers.
Hunter is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the nation's vast and expensive defense programs.
Hipp has been with American Defense International since 1998. The company's Web site indicates that the company represents more than 100 organizations in 11 countries on “government affairs” strategies, crafting messages to “decision makers” and “marketing a product or service to the federal government” – in other words, your standard lobbying activities.
In the scheme of things, that's not a big chunk of change, but in the current lobby-reform climate, a Hunter-Hipp association is something watchdog groups are bound to pounce on. … That is especially true since Hipp does not have a clean record. … About a decade ago, this former deputy assistant secretary of the Army was sentenced to five years' probation and three months' house arrest for taking illegal campaign gifts during a failed 1994 congressional campaign. He also was fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
That's a bit more serious than your average Federal Election Commission slap on the wrist. No doubt those critical of Hunter's close ties to imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham would be happy to point out that Hunter has ties to others who have run afoul of the law. (SD U-T 6/5/06)
Now, the article also goes on to say that all this money is no cause for concern. Everybody does it and “‘lobbyist’ is not – last we checked – an inherently dirty word.” Well, tell that to the people of the 50th who suffered the indignation and violation of trust of their former representative. Lobbyist isn’t necessarily a bad word, sure…as long as there isn’t any money involved. Until we have a process of clean elections, I’ll be sure to watch the lobbyists and where they are spreading all that cash. We’d be naïve if we didn’t. I’m sure a part of the reason why the focus is narrowing on the GOP is that thay control power. I’m certainly not saying that Dems are immune to corruption. That’s certainly not true (Exhibit A: Rostenkowski), but it is true that the GOP has not been hiding from all that loose money. Congressmen need to know that there are consequences of every action. Make sure you know who your john is before you whore our nation out. |
