Your Abramoff Scorecard (post 7/11)
Jack's said today that he can name eight Senators on our side of the aisle, and he's going to take up residency at the Federal Correction Institute in Cumberland, Maryland, as early as tomorrow, a short ride from his desk at the J. Edgar Hoover building on Pennsylvania Avenue, rather than the State of Florida, and awkward commute to DC.
Here are his working venues in the Senate (most everything Interior):
- Indian Affairs
Byron Dorgan (ND)
Daniel Inouye (HI)
Kent Conrad (ND)
Daniel Akaka (HI)
Tim Johnson (SD)
Maria Cantwell (WA)
- Energy and Natural Resources
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Daniel K. Akaka (HI)
Byron L. Dorgan (ND)
Ron Wyden (OR)
Tim Johnson (SD)
Mary L. Landrieu (LA)
Dianne Feinstein (CA)
Maria Cantwell (WA)
Ken Salazar (CO)
Robert Menendez (NJ) - Appropriations
Robert Byrd (WV)
Daniel Inoye (HI)
Patrick Leahy (VT)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara Mikulski (MD)
Harry Reid (NV)
Herb Kohl (WI)
Patty Murray (WA)
Byron Dorgan (ND)
Dianne Feinsetin (CA)
Richard Durbin (IL)
Tim Johnson (SD)
Mary Landrieu (LA)
We've excluded Environment and Public Works. While the Committee has Interior scope, its not where Jack's clients were making money, or greatly chaffed by ungreased skids.
Here are some things you can read and think about:
Eric's Things ANWR , in particular the post to the Triballaw mailing list Natives, Senators and Oil, The connection between drilling in the, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Akaka Bill by Anne Keala Kelly. Its long, but its primary material.
MB's Abramoff & the Injuns series.
We appreciate Jack, like a complex cheese. He's a straight ahead crook, and he actually understands Indian issues. And yes, we're turning Abramoff & the Injuns into a book.
There are over 560 Federally Recognized Indian Tribes surrounded by the United States. Only six hired Abramoff. The real tragedy of the whole Abramoff thing is that the tribes that didn't hire him would have done better if they had, and it isn't just the Passamaquoddies and Penobscots who are faced with implacibly hostile Democrats wedded to lotteries and various fictions why "the Indians of State X" have to live off of AFDC and WIC and even less.