Timing Is Everything
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:53 am
It’s been a busy week for Gov. Rick Perry, who, three days after his inauguration, slipped out of Texas unannounced Friday to attend to business in Washington, D.C., this weekend. Perry met with Texas’ Democrats in Congress and quietly announced that he was canceling lucrative lobby contracts the state had with Todd Boulanger and Drew Maloney, two lobbyists who were cronies of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. Ostensibly, Maloney and Boulanger were representing the state’s interests in Washington (and here we thought that’s what congressmen were for).
Boulanger once worked with Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist now doing time in a minimum security federal prison in Maryland, where’s he’s better known as inmate No. 27593-112. Maloney was a top DeLay aide who was heavily involved in the TRMPAC scandal that got DeLay a felony indictment in Travis County. In 2002, Maloney exchanged many emails with DeLay’s fund-raiser, Warren RoBold, like this one.
Now, with the Democrats controlling Congress, even Texas Republicans had to admit there was little reason to spend $360,000 a year in taxpayer money on lobbyists hired for their access to Republican leadership, if that’s what you call Abramoff’s pay-for-play gambit. Not surprisingly, the PR on this announcement was left to the Texas Dems who have fought against the contracts. “For four years, House Republicans voted to protect these corrupt lobbyists. I am happy to see that our efforts have finally paid off,” Texas House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam said in a statement.
The cancellation didn’t get a lot of attention since it was announced Friday afternoon — timing normally designed to bury unflattering public notices. As of Monday morning, a Google news search turned up only two stories about the canceled contracts.
The lingering question: Was Perry simply funneling taxpayer money to DeLay cronies or did the people of Texas actually get something for the more than $900,000 paid to Maloney and Boulanger since 2003? Tom Alexander, a spokesman for Boulanger’s firm, Cassidy & Associates, told the Dallas Morning News, “We are confident we provided an unmatched level of service that delivered positive results for the people of Texas.”
Oh really. And what, exactly, were those results?
We called Mr. Alexander to ask that exact question, and left a message for him. We also left a message for Maloney. When we hear back, we’ll tell you what they say.
