Tom Davis killed lobbying reform offered by the more ethical man across the river in MD, Chris Van Hollen.

Why would Davis take such a different position from his neighboring Congressman, a politician respected on both sides of the aisle?

Money. Davis is for sale.  And we can't afford him any more.

Open Secrets has broken the contributions down by industry. See how financial interests donated piles of money to Davis and others the year they wrote the laws preventing bankruptcies by people whose health care bills have wiped them out.  See how oil companies oozed money to Davis the year they wrote their own regulatory statute.  See how pharmaceutical companies broke records with contributions to Davis during Medicare Part D negotiations.  And lobbyists "pay to play" with more and more money to Davis every year.

In the Cash and Carry world of Tom DeLay and Tom Davis, Davis ranks # 8 out of 434 Congressmen, after Tom Delay and Friends, collecting money from PACS that want to write their own legislation, or just avoid jail for their fraud on taxpayers. Now that DeLay is gone, Davis ranks 7. Add the Senate members, and Davis is still impressively ranked at # 15 of the 533 lawmakers in demanding money from special interests.

Andrew Hurst is running to reform Congress.  He isn't taking any PAC contributions.  I joined Andy's campaign as a volunteer because I know Andy and no one will work harder than he will for his constituents.  RK recognized his energy and commitment early on (here)as well. Andy blogged on RK here  RK also exposed Tom Davis as no moderate.

Davis has a direct link to David Safarian, the former Federal Procurement Policy officer currently on trial facing charges of obstruction of justice.  Safavian was the first person to be arrested in the Jack Abramoff scandal.  Davis works very closely with Safavian's wife, Jennifer Safavian. Mrs. Safavian, who worked for Robert W. Ray (the successor to Kenneth Starr), is the chief investigative counsel to the House Committee on Government Reform, which Davis chairs. This committee, which handles procurement issues, investigated the dismal response by FEMA contractors, many which are Davis donors (Dewberry and IEM), who spearheaded the incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Safavian

Smells bad for Davis.

My question is, if this info is so easy to get off the Internet, why is the Washington Post completely silent on all of these matters?  Why does it treat Tom Davis like he's some kind of moderate messiah kindly watching over the D.C. area? 

This is just a theory, but could the WaPo be soft on Davis because he sort-of supports DC voting rights (but in the house only, and only if counter-balanced by Utah)?

To be fair, I used to live in the 11th CD and I have to give Davis credit for being very responsive to email/letters/phone calls.  Agree or disagree, a voter always gets a response from him (unlike Congressman Wolf and Delegate Marshall who completely ignore any contact from me since I moved into their districts).

There's no question that Davis is a very smart and capable politician.  The question is, who is he working for -- his constituents or his big-money donors?

although Richard Nixon said they were when he wanted to get out of trouble.  The Post editors have really given the Republican congress and Bush a long honeymoon.  They probably would never have published the "Pentagon Papers" if the NYT hadn't also.  They HATE getting scooped by NYT in their own town.  More recently, the Post didn't get the warrantless wiretapping story.  For goodness sake, USA Today got it, and they only have one story per day that's longer than 3 paragraphs.

Katherine Graham's biography talks about how she would lunch weekly with First Lady Nancy Reagan weekly at the ... Jockey Club, I think it was.  That doesn't bother me so much, as they were ladies of the same generation and may have had much in common.  However, they were often joined by Editorial Page Editor Meg Greenfeld!  That seems biased an inappropriate.  Graham wrote about how disappointed she was when the Reagans left town.  She, like most publishers, especially small and medium city publishers, are no liberal media.

and his employees at Pence-Friedel developing gave over $280,000 since 2004 to uber-neo-cons like George Allen, Rick Santorum, Michael Steele and Tom Davis.  At least $5,000 went directly to Davis, and more to Republican committees.  www.opensecrets.com

She has raised more money than any other VA State candidate.  Not from regular Virginians but special interests, defense contractors, developers, PACs, her husband's own campaign funds, and the very wealthy like "homemaker" Mrs. Ted Leonsis.

Wow, I took a look at the Post article.  Davis is likely to say “Everybody does it,â€Â� but that is not true.  Compare the booty Davis looted from lobbyists with that of other politicians including Van Hollen, who is on the same committees and has comparable seniority:

  • Davis reported assets of between $435,000 and $1.2 million
  • Davis received perhaps the most lavish gift reported by a member of the region's congressional delegation. He and his wife, state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R-Fairfax), were flown to Italy last year by the prominent GOP campaign contributor. The trip included a chartered cruise along the Amalfi coast and a visit to Venice valued at $13,110.

Democratic Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Albert R. Wynn, C. A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, and Republican Reps. Roscoe G. Bartlett and Wayne T. Gilchrest, reported no privately subsidized trips.

For Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D) who has more seniority and power than Davis (including on Senate Foreign Relations Committee), the lavish gift reported?  “Long active in Greek American groups, Sarbanes received a marble vase valued at $837 from Hellenic Public Radio-Cosmos FM as part of an award for public service.â€Â�  He reported six privately funded trips last year to Princeton University, his alma mater, where he serves as a trustee.

For Barbara A. Mikulski (D), 20 years seniority, the POst mentions no trips.

In the House, for Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D), two trips, one to Harvard and one to a weekend health policy conference in Florida. Cardin paid his own airfare.

For Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D), 11 privately funded trips, many of them to appear before African American groups or on behalf of the Democratic Party. He reported donating speaking fees totaling about $8,000 to charity.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D), House minority whip, traveled to New Orleans, Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, Ala., and to Israel on privately funded trips. The travel tabs were picked up by the Democratic Leadership Council, the Faith and Politics Institute, and the American Israel Education Fund, respectively.

One main point I take away from this, is that the group that funded Davis' trip (Pence-Freidel Developers) are developers in the Northern Virginia area.  Davis has used his power and position in the Congress to bring millions of infrastructure dollars to Northern Virginia. 

Now while the Congressional Ethics Committee found that there was no conflict of interest because Pence and his development firm "do not have business before Congress", they sure are getting a whole lot of business opportunities from Rep. Davis thanks to his earmarks.  This thing stinks and I cannot believe the Washington Post failed to cover this.  Deplorable.