John Kline's Auction Block
The DCCC has started up a new site called GOP Auction House. It attempts to catalog the full range of Republican corruption, and the ways in which Republican coziness with big business interests is hurting the country.
That's a mighty huge task.
It appears that they have info on every GOP member of Congress, including John Kline of course. It's worth explicitly making the point that I have seen no evidence so far that Kline is actually corrupt in the sense of Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney or Katherine Harris. It appears that unlike many of his colleagues, Kline actually makes an effort to maintain a clear distinction between his duty to his constituents and the PACs from which he receives money.
(The only caveat here is that Kline has remained remarkably loyal to DeLay, at one point voting to weaken Republican caucus ethics rules on DeLay's behalf, and until this very day holding on to $31,000 he's received in campaign contributions from DeLay or his PAC).
The real knock on Kline --- both in my opinion and according to GOP Auction House --- is simply that quite often he votes for bad legislation, because he votes with the GOP caucus 98% of the time. So he voted for last year's energy bill, which included $7 billion in giveaways to the oil and gas industry, at a time when oil companies were ringing up record profits. He voted for Medicare Part D. He opposed expanding TRICARE to cover all National Guard and Reserve troops (as I've discussed elsewhere). He championed Social Security privatization. And so on.
This site has raised the ire of at least one Kline supporter, but I'm just presenting Kline's record, as advertised. Those who don't like what I present need to take it up with Kline.
That's a mighty huge task.
It appears that they have info on every GOP member of Congress, including John Kline of course. It's worth explicitly making the point that I have seen no evidence so far that Kline is actually corrupt in the sense of Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney or Katherine Harris. It appears that unlike many of his colleagues, Kline actually makes an effort to maintain a clear distinction between his duty to his constituents and the PACs from which he receives money.
(The only caveat here is that Kline has remained remarkably loyal to DeLay, at one point voting to weaken Republican caucus ethics rules on DeLay's behalf, and until this very day holding on to $31,000 he's received in campaign contributions from DeLay or his PAC).
The real knock on Kline --- both in my opinion and according to GOP Auction House --- is simply that quite often he votes for bad legislation, because he votes with the GOP caucus 98% of the time. So he voted for last year's energy bill, which included $7 billion in giveaways to the oil and gas industry, at a time when oil companies were ringing up record profits. He voted for Medicare Part D. He opposed expanding TRICARE to cover all National Guard and Reserve troops (as I've discussed elsewhere). He championed Social Security privatization. And so on.
This site has raised the ire of at least one Kline supporter, but I'm just presenting Kline's record, as advertised. Those who don't like what I present need to take it up with Kline.
posted by David Bailey | 7:31 PM
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