No transparency in the Haley Barbour administration

Haley Barbour wants to defy our state legislature and withhold financial documents related to his blind trust. A new that has passed but not taken effect requires transparency on such documents. Haley Barbour is the only political figure in Mississippi who has a blind trust. A blind trust allows the Governor to hold on to his financial assets, while relinquishing direct access.

From the Clarion Ledger:

"I don't know of any legal authority to (deny public access), but the commission asked the attorneys to come back and look for legal authority to support their position, and we'll consider it," Tom Hood, the commission's executive director, said after the meeting.

A lawyer for Griffin Norquist, a banker in Yazoo City who manages Barbour's trust, also attended the meeting.

Barbour, a Republican and former Washington lobbyist whose client list included tobacco companies, created a blind trust when he took office in 2004. The tools are used mostly by politicians at the federal level and are supposed to prevent conflicts of interest by shielding them from their assets.

When will Mississippians realize the fact that we have a crook for a governor who operates under the guidance of the Bush-Cheney political playbook on a state level? Just like Cheney refusing to sell his financial interests before taking power, Barbour has insisted on keeping his ability to profit from his term in office. We have a lobbyist who serves as a part-time governor. When the numbers are released, Mississippians will see the truth. What does he have to hide? Cotton Mouth wants to know.

Haley Barbour wants to raise taxes on the insured and sick

Haley Barbour came in to office on a pledge of not raising taxes. He stood by that pledge, even when at times his stance was to the detriment of Mississippi. Now we have Haley wanting to raise taxes on the sick and on the insured. What gives?

There is one entity that Haley will not stand up to, even for the benefit of his home state. Big Tobacco sleeps well with the former highest paid tobacco lobbyist at the helm in Mississippi. Barbour supported the regressive grocery tax over the hike in tobacco tax. He now supports the hike in the hospital per-bed tax instead of an increase in the third lowest nationally tobacco tax.

What happened to the no taxes Haley? His real home team Big Tobacco came calling and good ole Haley was more than happy to play his part. His resistance to any compromise, even when Speaker McCoy has brought compromise to the table, offers a glimpse of how deep his allegiance to the tobacco lobby runs.

Who will pay the hostpital tax increase that Haley Barbour is trumpeting? Well, if you have a deduction from your paycheck every month for health insurance, you will. The hospitals will pass the tax burden down to the sick. A large part of that will transfer to the insurance companies, who in turn will raise YOUR rates.

So in rewind Haley says NO tax to:

Haley says let's DO tax:

Trent Lott starts to draw Republican pension

Trent Lott, now retired from his Senate seat, has embarked on what I call the Republican Fat-Cat pension plan. The Republican Fat-Cat pension plan is pretty simple. Spend your elected career advancing the interests of big donors (AKA big business) and when you retire you get on the pension plan. The Republican Fat-Cat retirement plan involves A) a fat paycheck on K Street as a lobbyist for the same corporations you shilled for on the Senate floor,or B) a high paying position in the industrial-military complex with some retired colonel who sells his country out on TV for dole. Trent opted for plan A.

Plan A required Trent to leave in a rush. He had good reason. New law effective on Jan 1, 2008 would have required the good Senator to wait 2 years after leaving office before entering the lobbying business (Republican Fat-Cat pension plan). Way to long to wait for this kind of bread. Good to see he joins John Breaux, a former DINO (Democrat In Name Only). Breaux's record is to the right of just about any Dem on capital hill in the last 20 years. As I said DINO.

Now there is this fine news from the AP and reaction from the Clarion Ledger.

At the time, Lott said he sought another term to continue his work on Capitol Hill on behalf of Mississippians struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
Much work remained for Mississippi to recover and rebuild from Katrina when Lott stepped down.

The longtime Republican lawmaker left politics to become a partner in a Washington lobbying firm with former Sen. John Breaux, D-La.

Now comes word that Lott is converting $1.2 million left in the Senate campaign fund into a political action committee that will help solidify his influence on Capitol Hill in his new career as a lobbyist.

A former Lott staff member said the move came so Lott could increase the amount of money he gives to candidates. Individuals and individual campaign committees may contribute no more than $2,300 to a federal candidate each election. But the PAC limit is $5,000.

What Lott is doing is legal, but rather unseemly.

Trent Lott Appears on To Not Tell The Truth

When Trent Lott resigned his position he said that new restrictions on lobbying that take effect after Dec. 31 "didn't have a big role" in his decision to retire.

He actually stated that he wanted to spend more time with his family and to pursue other job opportunities, possibly teaching.

As you now know he's going to set up a lobbying shop with retired Democratic Senator John Breaux from Louisiana.

Roll Call:Putting weeks of speculation to rest, former Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Breaux (D-La.) confirmed Friday they plan to file paperwork next week to form a powerful lobbying partnership called The Breaux Lott Leadership Group.

The Clarion Ledger has an appropriate response:

If he planned to turn lobbyist, but was not truthful about it, he has capped a 35-year career in public service by not being up-front and honest with those who supported him for decades.

If he decided out of the blue to turn lobbyist, he is capitalizing on a weakness in the ethics rules in squeaking by the 2007 deadline, and thumbing his nose at others who must abide by them.

And, either way, he's capitalizing on public service for private gain and using influence he garnered at public expense to affect the spending of public taxpayer dollars.

Whatever was on his mind, Trent Lott's actions speak louder than words, damaging the public's faith in government and elected public officials - and proving the cynics of government as justified. What a shame.

Enjoy The Supremes on "To Tell The Truth"


I used this Daily Kos post in preparing this post.

www.breauxlott.com

The Hill:

Sen. Trent Lott’s (R-Miss.) son registered the domain name breauxlott.com this fall, signaling strongly that the retiring minority whip will join forces with former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) on K Street in 2008.

Chet Lott, a registered lobbyist, secured the rights to the domain name on Oct. 16 — six weeks before his father announced his retirement from the upper chamber.

Two days after Sen. Lott’s stunning announcement, Breaux told his colleagues at Patton Boggs that he was leaving the firm to start a lobbying firm with his son, John Jr.

Caught by Y'all Politics first.

Haley Barbour and his Watergate Problem

The New Republic's Blog:

"GAPS BETWEEN APPOINTMENTS":

Mississippi governor and famed influence-peddler Haley Barbour had an interesting response Thursday to the piece Brad Plumer and I wrote about his K-Street ties. He made the comment to the Christian news service OneNewsNow.com: (Strangely he wouldn't talk to the American Family Association about this - John Leek)

Governor Barbour is disputing a report from a liberal magazine that claims he used state aircraft in June to travel to Washington, DC, to meet with partners at his old lobbying firm.

Barbour, who says he has severed ties with Barbour Griffith & Rodgers, LLC, has been criticized by his Democratic challenger John Arthur Eaves for setting up a blind trust that his old firm pays into annually. The governor says the New Republic article is a "fraud."

"I'd never take the state plane to Washington or anywhere else unless it's on official government business," he says. "But there's no question, a lot of days when you're in Washington all day and you have gaps between appointments -- if you see the secretary of HHS at 8:00 in the morning and you don't see the secretary of commerce until 11:00 in the morning -- you know, you have gaps in your schedule."

Barbour says the New Republic is a "left-wing rag" that has been attacking him for years because he is a conservative who is pro-life and opposes homosexual "marriage."

I don't have a whole lot to add--other than to point out that, you know, Watergate could be said to have happened during "gaps between appointments." Well, okay, I do have one more thing to add: Barbour's point about seeing the secretary of HHS at 8:00 and the secretary of commerce at 11:00 sounds plausible in theory. But, on the day we saw him, he'd touched down at Dulles airport a few minutes after noon, then strolled into his old office building at 1 pm. Given that it takes about 45 minutes to drive from Dulles to downtown Washington, that must have been an awfully quick meeting at HHS.

P.S. Notice, also, how quickly Barbour pivots from his lobbying-firm connections to abortion and gay marriage. It's enough to make Tom Frank blush.

--Noam Scheiber

"K Street Evil Genius" Story Breaks New Ground

The K Street Evil Genius Who Took Over Mississippi

The story breaks new ground on two main points:

First, part of what was supposedly held in trust couldn't have possibly been "blind":

Most blind trusts involve a transfer of assets from their owner to the trust. But this document [setting up Barbour’s blind trust] explicitly said that several of Barbour's assets, including his interest in BG&R's parent company, would not be transferred. Instead, Norquist would simply assume "full control and dominion over" them. That meant that Barbour, rather than the trust, would pay taxes on these assets and would therefore know he owned them and how much they were worth. The trust would be anything but blind.

And Barbour is still visiting his lobbying firm:

So has Barbour really severed ties to his old lobbying outfit? There is one final detail worth contemplating before passing judgment. A little before 9 a.m. local time on the morning of June 19 of this year, a Cessna carrying Barbour departed Jackson-Evers airport in Mississippi for Washington, D.C. The flight touched down at Dulles airport a few minutes after noon, marking the fifteenth time since January 1, 2007, that the governor’s plane had landed in the Washington area.

Just under an hour later, tnr observed a hulking black GMC Yukon deposit Barbour outside a nondescript building at 1275 Pennsylvania Avenue, the site of the lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers. Barbour, wearing a dark suit and a sea-blue tie and identifiable by his nature-defying helmet of hair, strolled into the building alone, save for a laptop carrying-case and a cell phone. He stopped to exchange a few words with a receptionist, then disappeared from view. Roughly 90 minutes later, he exited the building with a red-headed man at his side. The two entered the Yukon and rode away down Pennsylvania Avenue. Just another day at that “little lobbyin’ firm up in Washington, D.C.”

So what do y'all think?

The K Street Evil Genius Who Took Over Mississippi

Killer Haley Barbour Diary on Kos

Check It Out and if you have a DailyKos account Recommend It!

An excerpt:

Our Democratic candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor are running on trying to cut the regressive grocery tax, the highest in the country. Barbour, a former top tobacco lobbyist, still with financial ties to his former lobbying firm, has repeatedly killed the tax swap legislation that would cut the food tax and offset the revenue loss with a raise of the third lowest tobacco tax in the country. Even the current incumbent Lt. Governor, Republican Amy Tuck has championed the tax swap.

I wonder why?

Barbour had been among the tobacco industry's top lobbyists prior to returning to Mississippi. Between 1998 and 2002, such tobacco companies as Phillip Morris, RJR Nabisco, Brown and Williamson, and U.S. Tobacco paid his firm $3.8 million. The firm has collected more than $2 million in tobacco revenue since Barbour became governor.

Barbour’s grip on power here has even members of his own party scared of him:

To this day, few in the GOP have dared cross Barbour on the matter. Recently, lobbyists from the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program asked several Republicans to pledge to raise the tobacco tax. They encountered near-universal resistance. "A lot of Republicans are saying, Do you know what you're doing? If I sign this thing, then Haley will come and dump more money into my opponent's campaign,'" says Roy Mitchell, the program's director.

And he rewarded his friends with Katrina money for towing the line on the food/tobacco tax swap legislation:

This year, legislators tried again, introducing two more bills that would have halved the state's grocery tax and raised the cigarette tax by $1. Barbour didn't even lift his veto pen this time around--the bills died at the hands of Senate finance committee chairman Tommy Robertson. Oddly, Robertson had been a vocal advocate of previous tax-swap bills. Earlier this year, however, he and two other Republican legislators--who, in their day jobs, are lawyers--had received a $1.2 million contract from the Mississippi Development Authority, which is overseen by the governor, to help homeowners finalize their Katrina grants. The contract raised more than a few eyebrows. (In an interview, Robertson said the contract--which was cleared by the state ethics commission on a party-line vote--had "absolutely nothing" to do with his stance on the tax swap.)

Sure Tommy.

Again go Check It Out and if you have a DailyKos account Recommend It!

Barbour Gets the ThinkProgress Treatment

After noting that Giuliani said that Haley Barbour would be on everyone's list for VP, Think Progress goes into detail on why he might not be the best choice for any ticket offering up these "lowlights":

Family members and lobbyists profited from Katrina tragedy: “Among the beneficiaries are Barbour’s own family and friends, who have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from hurricane-related business. A nephew, one of two who are lobbyists, saw his fees more than double in the year after his uncle appointed him to a special reconstruction panel.”

Owned controlling interest in 2002 New Hampshire phone jamming company: For nearly two hours on election day 2002, subcontractors for the telemarketing firm GOP Marketplace tied-up Democratic and union phone banks with repeated hang up calls. Multiple GOP officials eventually either pled guilty to or were convicted of criminally violating federal communications law. Barbour’s investment group, Helm Partners, was not only a major investor in GOP Marketplace, but it also held a controlling interest in the firm.

As a lobbyist, he represented firm indicted in Tom DeLay’s money laundering scandal: As a lobbyist for Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Barbour represented The Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care Inc., “a corporate coalition of 14 of the country’s largest for-profit nursing home companies.” The Alliance wrote a check for $100,000 “ended up illegally funding Republican candidates for the Texas statehouse” in 2002. The check was eventually used as evidence in the case that led to indictments for money laundering against former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX).

A former tobacco lobbyist, he killed Mississippi’s successful anti-smoking program: From 1998 to 2002, Barbour’s lobbying firm “was paid a total of $3.8 million by the tobacco companies.” As governor of Mississippi, he led an effort to defund and ultimately kill the state’s anti-smoking program, considered to be “the nation’s most successful anti-smoking programs.”

Directed large amounts of reconstruction funds to wealthy homeowners: Barbour and Mississippi’s two Republican Senators steered an “unprecedented” $23.5 billion in federal reconstruction aid, but by waiving a HUD requirement that “70 percent of the funds are supposed to be allocated to low- and moderate-income people.” Barbour “badly skewed” the funds towards “wealthy homeowners,” with only 25 percent reaching “the poorer segments of the population.”

Most of the quotes are hyperlinked on their site to supporting documents or articles and you can check that out at ThinkProgress.org

The Rise and Fall of Haley Barbour

Haley Barbour has led, by most accounts, a fairly charmed life. He's gone from being a Republican in a single-party Democratic state, to being the second Republican governor of Mississippi since Reconstruction. Along the way, Gov. Barbour has been chairman of the Republican National Committee and the lead partner in the most influential lobbying firm on the Republican side of the aisle.

But Barbour may have reached his apogee, and although I know it's hardly Christian of me, I think his star may be about to fall - and it's about time.

When Barbour was elected governor, he placed his assets in a blind trust. For those of you who don't know, a blind trust is a mechanism whereby a property owner can receive benefits from their property without having to abandon offices of public trust that might have a role to play in determining the value of their property. In a blind trust, the trustee manages the beneficiary's property, but the beneficiary can receive no information regarding the disposition of the property - they just receive the payouts to which the trust structure entitles them.

In Gov. Barbour's case, he was entitled to $25,000 a month in payouts. His initial trust included shares in his old lobbying firm worth over three-quarters of a million dollars. Here's what's interesting, to me, at least:

What we have here is that some times Barbour has made statements that he did hold an equity position in the parent company of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers -- now very much in the news for its representation of the Iraq political ambitions of former Iraq Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi -- and at other times he said he had severed all ties to the firm but was getting a "retirement payment."
- Steve Clemons, The Atlantic

As Clemons points out in that same piece, Barbour's old firm doesn't provide retirement benefits. So, either the Governor is receiving a benefit that no one else at BGR is getting (which might be legal, but certainly isn't ethical), or the firm is making payments into his blind trust in return for some continuing service.

What sort of continuing service could the sitting Governor of Mississippi be providing to a lobbying firm? Nothing good for the people of Mississippi, I'm sure. But let's not assume the worst. Let's assume that Gov. Barbour is simply receiving a pension benefit from BGR that no other member or employee of the firm gets. Because you know, that's totally fair.

But that's not the end of the Governor's ethical lapses. Much has been made of the Governor's nephews' lobbying business in the Great State. Particularly impressive has been the efficacy with which their client's causes have made progress through the Legislature. But more important than that, the Governor has seen fit to appoint family members time and time again to various governmental commissions that are overseeing the recosntruction of the state in the wake of Katrina.

Bloomberg News points out that the Barbour family members that have been overseeing Katrina reconstruction have been paid for lobbying services during their time on the panels. Interestingly enough, the clients that paid the Governor's nephews during this period managed to benefit from the work that they did on recovery, to the tune of almost three million dollars. Isn't that a strange coincidence?


I'm not so naive as to think that government doesn't work via the personal connections between people. As the governor's lawyer puts it, Barbour "naturally is not going to be disinclined to help [his nephews] whenever he can." And I accept that. The problem is the interconnectedness of the remunerative relationships. The way that the Governor's family gets appointed to help make recommendations for storm recovery - and the recommendations just magically happen to throw a lot of business to a lobbying client of the family. There's just something about the process that stinks.

And that stink is starting to stick to Haley Barbour. The Clarion-Ledger is pissed about the monumental waste that Katrina recovery has involved. Bloomberg's Tim Burger is knocking the ball out of the park with his reporting on this, and the legalistic arguments of Barbour's representatives ring hollow in a state that has seen two years of bull on the question of recovery.

If John Arthur Eaves is smart - and he must be, or he wouldn't have been so successful, all evidence on the campaign trail to the contrary - he will hammer Barbour's unwillingness to talk. He will ask, what is Barbour hiding? If there's nothing to hide, why won't Barbour let us see?

If Eaves can make this issue have legs, he may be able to make a race of it.

John Eaves' Response on the Bloomberg "Blind" Trust Article

From the press release:

Today, on the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, an article by Bloomberg News raises serious doubts about how Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour directed the billions of dollars of Katrina recovery funds.

“The Bloomberg report raises some troubling questions, especially about the financial interest Barbour may still have in the lobbying firm that bears his name,” said Sharon Garrison, spokeswoman for John Eaves for Governor. “The report indicates that Barbour makes more from his ties to Washington and the performance of his old firm than he does as Governor. Is this still true today?”

According to Bloomberg, Barbour earns $122,160 a year as governor and receives $300,000 a year from his blind trust. At the time of its initial filing, the trust included $786,666 of stock in the parent company of Barbour Griffith & Rogers Inc. (BGR), “as well as pension and profit-sharing plan benefits from the lobby firm.”

Garrison continued, “The people of Mississippi deserve to know when Barbour sold the stake in his firm, if ever. Did Barbour receive funds from his firm while its clients had business before the state? It all boils down to one question: who do you serve?”

I think that is a fair question. Whom do you serve, Governor Barbour? Without transparency in his financial dealings and clear ethics laws and restrictions we man never know.

Talking Points Memo's Muckraker Covers Barbour's Money

Talking Points Memo is one of the leading investigative blogs in the nation and tends to pick one issue and exhaustively cover it. Unfortunately Katrina corruption is not that issue, but he gives us this mention:

We've written about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's (R) impressive talent for securing federal Katrina aid funds. That might come from his former role as RNC chairman. But it might also have to do with the fact that he still receives monthly checks from Barbour Griffith & Rogers Inc., the lobbyist firm he helped to start. Haley says all the money coming is part of a pension; others say it's generally good practice to disclose these things. (Bloomberg)"

Haley Barbour's Blind Trust Pokes Justice In The Eye

Bloomberg News brings us another investigative article on Barbour's finances:

The blind trust document he signed about six weeks later says that on Jan. 13, 2004, the day he took office, Barbour still had a stake worth $786,666 in the publicly traded parent company of Barbour Griffith & Rogers Inc., as well as pension and profit-sharing plan benefits from the lobby firm.

A copy of the notarized trust agreement, obtained from an individual who requested anonymity, says Barbour receives $25,000 per month, or $300,000 a year, from it. He lists the trust in his annual Mississippi ethics filing as his only source of income outside his $122,160 salary as governor.

Wow, he gets to be governor and collect a half million each year. (I do realize that he took the office at great personal sacrifice (sarcasm) to his own well-being and income) I'd like to know what is included in the "profit sharing" portion of the "blind" trust.

Barbour's blind trust ``is allowing him to hide things,'' said Bob Stern, president of Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies, which studies ethics and campaign laws. ``For him then to not disclose the sources of income from it -- then actually we're losing disclosure.''

If Mississippi law doesn't specifically provide for shielding a trust's income sources from disclosure, Barbour should list them on his annual disclosure form, said Stern, who has advised the state of California on ethics laws.

Barbour has never been someone for open government and transparency. After out of state groups dumped several million dollars into political advertising in the state prior to Barbour's election the legislature acted with a simple commonsense rule. If you want to spend money on political advertising in our state you would have to disclose your donors. The bill passed both houses and Barbour vetoed it. Nearly all the spending had benefited Republicans so he didn't care if they were anonymous.

The lobbying firm in Washington that still bears Barbour's name represented at least four clients with business linked to the recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, according to federal lobbying filings, a filing with the state of Mississippi and senior officials of two of the clients.
...
"I'm not sure whether the trustee continues to take that money,'' Brunini said. "If I was the trustee, I might go into that company and make a deal to cash that out and invest it in some other way."

Brunini's idea looks like it makes sense. It's too bad the good governor didn't think to cut those ties. Until the contents of his trust are available for public scrutiny, the questions will and should remain concerning whether the payments he receives influence his decisions in office whether he supposedly knows about them or not.

Bill Minor's Take on Bloomberg and Blind Trusts

Bill Minor:

As expected, Gov. Haley Barbour shrugged off as "election-year politics" the detailed expose' by Bloomberg News Service on how his relatives and his campaign have profited off Katrina recovery money...What puts a highly sensitive stamp on this money is that it was generated by the nation's worst natural disaster, and was intended to help its victims.
Thus it is purely cynical for Barbour to equate as election-year politics the story showing how two of his nephews, his old lobby firm, and his own campaign war chest (to the tune of $45,000) benefited from Katrina money...

A bill to disclose sources of income paid to a blind trust passed the Mississippi House in February, but was killed by Barbour forces in the Senate.


This column and others have questioned whether his so-called blind trust includes a stake in his old lobby firm, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, from which he said in 2003 he severed connections... Since one of BG&R's clients is tobacco giant P. Lorillard, it could be seen that Barbour, in vetoing the bill to raise Mississippi's pitifully low cigarette tax, was shielding the tobacco industry. Burger points out two of Barbour's ex-partners in BG&R have kicked in $30,000 for his campaign.

Read the rest at The Clarion Ledger

Barbour's Firm to Undermine Iraqi Government

From IraqSlogger.com:

Republican lobbyists with close ties to the Bush administration are aiding and supporting the efforts of an Iraqi opposition leader who is calling for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The anti-Maliki crusader is former Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, and the Washington firm retained to spearhead U.S.-focused efforts on his behalf is the Republican powerhouse group of Barbour, Griffith, and Rogers (BGR).

BGR International's president is Robert Blackwill, the one-time White House point man on Iraq, holding the title of Presidential Envoy to Iraq in 2004.

What do you think? Let everybody know in the comments.