Conservatives Without Conscience

DeLay, his later successor John Boehner, and key authoritarian cronies have also assembled what may prove the most corrupt lobbying operation in Washington since the “Ohio Gang” was run out of their infamous “little green house” at 1625 K Street in 1923.[33] K Street, a wide boulevard lined with office buildings in downtown Washington, D.C., is the corridor where many powerful lobbying firms base their operations. When Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, one of their first moves was to seize control of the lobbying sector.[*] When he became Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich deputized then majority whip Tom DeLay to make sure House Republicans were getting their share of campaign dollars from K Street, and to inform the lobbying firms and trade associations that if they wanted access to GOP leaders, they should hire Republicans to lobby.[34] This undertaking soon became known as the K Street Project. DeLay was assisted by Pennsylvania Republican Senator Richard Santorum, who regularly approved the names of people to be hired by the K Street firms, and John Boehner “formed his alliances on K Street when he served as chairman of the GOP conference from 1995 to 1998.”[35] To make certain lobbying firms were, in fact, hiring conservative Republicans, Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and the project’s coarchitect, also constantly monitored the operation.[*] “We don’t want non-ideological people on K Street, we want conservative Republicans on K Street,” Norquist stated.[36]

But the K Street Project was about more than just finding jobs for Republicans; it was about money—the big money needed to maintain a Republican majority. “Washington conservatives and the Republican leadership in Congress,” wrote informed political observer John Judis, were pursuing “a strategy for retaining Republican control of Congress and for winning the White House.” That strategy, Judis reported, was to turn K Street, and the business interests it represents, “into loyal soldiers in the new Republican revolution. In exchange for legislative favors, Gingrich, DeLay, and other congressional leaders expected that the businesses would provide funds to keep them in office.”[37] When lobbying firms or special interest groups hired someone to the Republican leadership’s disliking, they were punished. For example, in 1998, when the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) hired former Democratic representative Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma to head its Washington office, DeLay effectively vetoed the hire. “First, DeLay put out the word that McCurdy would not be welcome in Republican leadership offices,” reported Lou Dubose and Jan Reid, which would clearly make McCurdy an ineffective lobbyist. When EIA refused to fire McCurdy, DeLay upped the stakes by pulling from the House calendar consideration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, an essential piece of legislation for protecting intellectual property on the Internet that a coalition of industry people, including EIA, had worked on for two years. When an end run through the Senate was attempted, DeLay again blocked the bill when it came to the House. “When DeLay used his position as majority whip to block its final passage in the House, he sent K Street a loud, crude message,” Dubose and Reid observed. “He also probably broke the law.”[38] Extortion is not something that registers easily with a Double High authoritarian who is busy manipulating the world.

With impunity DeLay “regularly engage[d] in pay-to-play lawmaking and flagrant abuses of power,” one reporter noted.[39] DeLay was taking names and making lists, not only of who was being hired to lobby, but of how much money was being contributed to Republicans. Rumor in Washington was that DeLay had “a little black book” he kept on his desk, which he opened whenever a lobbyist came to see him to determine whether he was pleased with the latest contribution made by the organization the lobbyist represented. If DeLay was not happy, he would not be particularly helpful to the lobbyist. When he was satisfied, though, he let it be known through favorable action. Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter did not believe the gossip, so he asked DeLay about it. “DeLay not only confirmed the story,” Alter later wrote, “he showed me the book.” DeLay claimed his time was limited, explained Alter. “Why should he open his door to people who were not on his team?”[40]