[GOP Corruption]

Legalized Corruption Part 2: The K Street Project

Read Part 1: Autocracy in the Congress

There is an actual K Street,--it's in Washington DC, a few blocks north of the White House. Lined along it are the offices of the world's largest and most powerful corporate lobbyists. They were there before the Republicans seized control of Washington, but their function has shifted noticeably sinee the mid-90s, and dramatically since 2000. Where under Democratic power, they were reduced to trying to offset liberal efforts to support the working classes, under Republicans, they have formed a fourth branch of government--one by and for the corporate donors.

The K Street Project was the conceit of key politicians and power brokers (like our man Grover) to accomplish exactly this end. If you want the definitive text on K Street, go see Nick Confessore's "Welcome to the Machine." It's long but well worth the read. I'll condense some of the key points here.

Following the Republican takeover in 1994, the Republicans resolved to seize control of lobbying. Previously, lobbyists spread their money around evenly between the parties to ensure their interests were served. Republicans changed that--they demanded complete fealty:

In 1995, DeLay famously compiled a list of the 400 largest PACs, along with the amounts and percentages of money they had recently given to each party. Lobbyists were invited into DeLay's office and shown their place in "friendly" or "unfriendly" columns. ("If you want to play in our revolution," DeLay told The Washington Post, "you have to live by our rules.") Another was to oust Democrats from trade associations, what DeLay and Norquist dubbed "the K Street Strategy."

Once the lobbyists were on board, Republicans and lobbyists began to coordinate their strategies. Norquist developed a database that tracked party affiliation, Hill experience, and political giving of every lobbyist--and then made sure they were replaced with loyal elephants.

Beginning in the 1990s, Washington's corporate offices and trade associations began to resemble miniature campaign committees, replete with pollsters and message consultants. To supplement PAC giving, which is limited by federal election laws, corporations vastly increased their advocacy budgets, with trade organizations spending millions of dollars in soft money on issue ad campaigns in congressional districts. And thanks to the growing number of associations whose executives are beholden to DeLay or Santorum, these campaigns are increasingly put in the service of GOP candidates and causes.

It is no surprise, then, to realize that those industry lobbyists are actually writing legislation. Policy affecting agriculture no longer emerges from the Department of Agriculture (where corporate toadies are parked), but from the companies that will profit from it. This is handy, because where the Department of Agriculture is subject to oversight from Congress and the courts, lobbyists are not.

The ability to write legislation is, obviously, a remarkable power. The "Halliburton Effect" is just the most obvious of the transition from federal to corporate. Now, wherever there's an opportunity to give a sweetheart deal to a company to perform a federal job (feeding the troops, providing health care, guarding prisoners), the company who will benefit from it writes up the legislation.

The result? Since 2000, the number of lobbyists feeding at the trough has doubled, overall spending on lobbying has increased 30%, and the kickbacks to those corporate interests from the federal government has grown 28%, from $1.79 to $2.29 trillion dollars (that's just the direct outlay, of course--profits off the outlay make the lobbyists' investment in government a tidy sum indeed).

Combine this seemlessness between the corporate interests and their elected patrons with the new rules Republicans have enacted to prevent Democratic interference, and you have one of the most effective, powerful political machines ever devised. And this ain't a local machine like Daley's or Tweed's, it's the US Government.

This is the reason the Abramoff scandal is such a big deal. It's why you're hearing the Dems talking daily about dismantling K Street. And it's why, if the scandal does have legs, it could eventually expose the most corruption in a century.

We can hope.