02.12.07
Lobbyists As Policymakers For Governor
The scariest part of the revelations that came out this weekend about Perry and the former elected and appointed GOPers – these are the revolving-door people that are spoken about so often – is the matter of fact way it’s being dealt with. It’s seems that it’s no big deal anymore that the governor’s former employees, and his friend, the former US Senator, are the ones spearheading, and would eventually profit from, this latest privatization scheme he’s come forward with. Here’s the HChron article, Perry’s lobbyist contacts cloud lottery-sale plan:
Gov. Rick Perry’s ties to lobbyists have drawn scrutiny in the days since he proposed selling the Texas Lottery to a private company.
Former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, a friend of Perry’s, is handling discussions for the proposed lottery sale, a spokesman for Gramm’s company acknowledged.
Gramm is vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank, which has been advising the governor on the proposed privatization of the state lottery. Gramm was a federally registered lobbyist for UBS last year.
Ray Sullivan, a lobbyist registered with the investment firm in Texas, worked as a spokesman for Perry several years ago. Sullivan is now in business with Michael Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff.
Cloud plan?!! That headline should read, Perry’s lobbyist contacts make plan To sell lottery DOA. The ho-hum, matter-of-fact way corruption is dealt with in the media these days is really astonishing. As Kuff points out there are similarities in this deal to Perry’s other latest “policy” initiative (HPV vaccine). But there’s another similarity that is going unnoticed. The lobbyists are the one’s coming up with these policy initiatives – HPV vaccine and selling the lottery – not the governor’s office. Which tells us a lot about who is really running our state government.
Eye on Williamson » Trouble With The Lottery said,
June 20, 2007 at 11:57 am
[...] The difference would be that the DA would be investigating the corporation that did the best job of lobbying the governor to get the contract instead of cronies appointed by the [...]