GOP Freshman Holds Lavish Fundraiser for DC Lobbyists

Capping a season of lavish fundraising events where Republican members of Congress raised huge sums from lobbyists, corporate donors and special interests, one Republican freshman is holding a major bash, at $2,500 per person, complete with live performance by Leigh Ann Rimes, $50,000 all-inclusive package deals and luxury suites at the W hotel. Despite Tea Party opposition to corrupt corporate-interest politics, Rep. Jeff Denham is openly positioning himself to be the go-to rainmaker for fellow Republicans.

The party is aimed at collecting donations from major lobbyists and lobbying organizations, on the eve of the Republican party’s being sworn in to serve in the majority in the House of Representatives. Despite a vicious campaign year alleging corruption in Washington and the need to throw out incumbents and vote in the everyman, the Tea Party’s numerous Mr. Smiths have turned out to be more aggressive and more prolific at DC-centered special interest fundraising than any freshman class in recent memory.

One critic of the fundraising said tonight that the higher price of these parties, with the specific focus on lobbyists representing for-profit interests, appears to be attributable to “the higher quality of the services being offered”. The Republican party is reported to be “cringing” at the inauguration-eve banquet, because it so wildly flies in the face of the populist image the party has sought to cultivate to win Tea Party support for the 2010 midterm election, but Rep. Denham’s fundraiser appears par for the course.

The 112th Congress will be sworn in with most Republican freshmen having aggressively courted massive donations from Washington insiders. The Republican party has been orchestrating a coordinated exchange of ideas, money and relationships between members of Congress, corporate interests, campaign donors and special interests more broadly.

According to Politico:

House Speaker-elect John Boehner, whose name was featured on the invitation, is nonetheless skipping the event at the W Hotel, where lobbyists, political action committee managers and others paying the $2,500 ticket price will be treated to a performance by country music star LeAnn Rimes (a $50,000 package includes a block of eight tickets and a “VIP suite” at the W). The office of incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor, another featured invitee, was noncommittal Monday night when asked whether he’d attend.

“If incoming GOP freshmen were hoping to bring fiscal responsibility and ‘family values’ to Washington, they may have gotten off to an interesting start,” conservative blogger Matt Lewis noted, citing the event’s steep ticket prices, as well as Rimes’s confessed extramarital affair and her recent appearance in a “Sexy Santa” outfit at a gay men’s chorus Christmas performance.

The question is: what will the huge flood of special interest cash being donated to new members of Congress get them? Would any of those pseudo-populist Republicans who took those donations be courageous enough to say those donations have no actual value for those that made them? Would they be courageous enough to admit they do actually mean something?

(source:casavaria.com)