Joe Conason: Will Big Tobacco's Former Bag-Man Really Be the New Speaker?

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Will Big Tobacco's Former Bag-Man Really Be the New Speaker?

By Joe Conason
September 14, 2010

With their loud voices and antic style, the "tea party" activists may lead voters to expect something new and different if the Republican Party returns to power. But observing the man who would wield that power if his party wins a midterm majority should swiftly dispel that illusion.

There is nothing fresh or surprising about Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), the would-be Speaker, a figure so closely associated with corporate special interests that he looks, sounds and behaves exactly like a lobbyist. He golfs, drinks, smokes, and maintains am unusually bronzed complexion, thanks to company jets that whisk him away to his favorite Florida resorts. He seems as if he could have stepped straight out of Thank You for Smoking, Christopher Buckley's classic spoof of Washington's cynical, morally empty K Street.

Not bad enough to change his convenient, highly profitable relationships with lobbyists and their clients. Yet while other Republicans became notorious for their political promiscuity - and sometimes paid a heavy price - Mr. Boehner somehow escaped censure. His fellow Ohioan and former House colleague Bob Ney went to prison as a casualty of the corruption scandal that sank superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, but Mr. Boehner actually received more money from the Abramoff operation than Mr. Ney. Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader was renowned for his prowess in squeezing money from lobbyists, but Mr. Boehner raised more money than "the Hammer" did during a critical period in 2006. He even rented a Capitol Hill apartment from a lobbyist who had been hired to influence him--a blatant conflict of interest that the House Ethics Committee somehow failed to notice under Republican control.

When his party held the majority, Mr. Boehner chaired the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which sounds innocuous but attracts lobbyists like a cowpie draws flies. Overseeing a broad array of issues from the minimum wage to student loans, he made the most of their interest in his legislation. He achieved a kind of masterpiece with the passage of a bill that favored the private student loan industry over direct government lending--at an estimated cost to taxpayers of 9 cents on the dollar. Students, families and taxpayers lost in that deal, but Mr. Boehner's banker pals made out like...bankers. Over the past two decades he has collected more than $120,000 from Sallie Mae, the mammoth student loan outfit--and enjoyed several trips to Florida golf destinations in the Sallie Mae corporate jet.

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http://www.observer.com/2010/opinion/will-big-tobaccos-former-bag-man-really-be-new-speaker