Issa Secured Nearly $1 Million In Earmarks Potentially Benefiting Real Estate That He Owns

By Lee Fang

As Roll Call reported earlier this month, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has a history of blending his personal business interests with his work as a member of Congress. Companies owned by the Issa family, including a firm called DEI (an acronym for Issa’s initials), set up websites to channel users to Issa’s official congressional campaign website. After Roll Call made an ethical inquiry to Issa, he changed the website.

ThinkProgress has discovered more troubling evidence that Issa may have blended his work as a lawmaker with his own business empire. After founding a successful car alarm company, Issa invested his fortune in a sprawling network of real estate companies with holdings throughout his district. One of Issa’s most valuable properties, a medical office building at 2067 West Vista Way in Vista, California, is called the Vista Medical Center, and was purchased in 2008 for $16.6 million. Described as “a long-term investment,” the property was bought by a company called Viper LLC, a business entity operated by Issa’s family that Issa has up to a $25 million dollar stake in.

Around the same time Issa made the Vista Medical Center purchase, the congressman began requesting millions of dollars worth of earmarks to widen and improve the highway adjacent to the building. In 2008, he requested $2 million to expand West Vista Way, the road in front of his “long-term investment,” but only received $245,000 from the government. The next year, Issa made another earmark request for improving the West Vista Way highway next to his building. He earmarked another$570,000, bringing his total to $815,000, to add parking lots, widen the road, add bus stops, improve the sewer system, and other utility work. A map showing the location of Issa’s property, and the road, is below:

Issa has said that an “earmark is tantamount to a bribe.” While Issa has handed outearmarks to his campaign donors in the past, in this case, he appears to be helping himself.

Although the highway project has not begun yet (because of local budget problems), the federal money is allocated through Issa’s efforts. Already, a firm representing Issa’s real estate company is advertising the Vista Medical Building and its “Excellent Access with Freeway Visibility.” As ethics experts have explained, lawmakers shouldavoid earmarks in the immediate area of their own business interests.

Issa’s highway earmarks not only potentially benefit his multi-million dollar medical office building, they provide better access to his other properties in the area. About 2 miles down West Vista Way from the Vista Medical Center, Issa owns a commercialoffice building worth over $9 million, as well as an adjacent retail office building. The commercial office building leases to a number of different clients, and Issa’s retail building leases to a Hooter’s. All three properties are on the same highway, which Issa plans to retrofit with taxpayer money.

Anti-Spending Tea Party Caucus Members Took Over $1 Billion In Earmarks

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Congressional earmarks have been one of theprimary targets of the tea party, representing the nexus of the movement’s arch foes — government spending and Washington influence peddling. If Republicans “go back to their old earmarking ways it could be a VERY short majority,” the president of the hard-right Citizens Against Government Waste warned. Looking to capitalize on the tea party, Republican leaders endorsed bans on earmarking as a way to show they were different from their spendthrift predecessors in previous Congresses. And last month, House Republicans unanimously extended an internal moratorium on earmarks.

But it appears that tea party’s self-proclaimed representatives in Washington haven’t been putting their money where their mouths are. Hotline On Call reports today that members of House Tea Party Caucus, founded by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to “represent the views of our constituents,” requested over $1 billion in earmarks during the last fiscal year:

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), for one, attached his name to 69 earmarks in the last fiscal year, for a total of $78,263,000. The 41 earmarks Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) requested were worth $65,395,000. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) wanted $63,400,000 for 39 special projects, and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) wanted $93,980,000 set aside for 47 projects.

When asked to explain how they could join a caucus dedicated to fighting government spending and yet request millions in pork projects, tea party lawmakers told the Hotline that they stopped requesting new earmarks after joining the group.

But this is hardly the first indication that Republicans may not be as genuine in their commitment to fighting pork as they would like tea party activists to believe. Last month, as the AP reported that “[o]nly three days after GOP senators and senators-elect renounced earmarks, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, got himself a whopping $200 million to settle an Arizona Indian tribe’s water rights claim against the government.” An earmark ban was also conspicuously absent from House Republicans’ Pledge to American governing agenda, causing uproar among activists.

Tea party favorite Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) highlights this disparity between rhetoric and action well. In March, his website told supporters that “a ban on wasteful earmark spending in Washington D.C. [is] one of the key points of his campaign.” But after winning the election, Paul told the Wall Street Journal that he “will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork,” suggesting it would be “crazy” not to.

Inhofe Declares War On DeMint-Backed Earmark Ban, Saying Those Who Support It Are ‘Brainwashed’

By Alex Seitz-Wald While much ink has been spilled exploring the civil war between far-right tea party conservatives and more moderate Republicans, there appears to be a new rift emerging among the die-hard conservative wing in the Senate. Echoing the demands of the tea party movement, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) proposed yesterday a ban on earmarks in the Senate, and is aggressively whipping his colleagues to support it. While Republican leaders offered strong rhetoric on the campaign trail about opposing earmarks, now that the GOP has successfully taken power, they have been cool to DeMint’s proposal.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) — whom National Journal ranked as the most conservative senator in 2009 — has gone even further, declaring “an all-out war within the Senate GOP conference next week to defeat an earmark moratorium.” Inhofe has said he will take to the Senate floor Monday to deliver a “pretty strong statement” against the ban, and to call out DeMint for supporting earmarks before he was against them. DeMint “was really pro-earmark. … He ran as a pro-earmarker” as a House Member in 2004, Inhofe told Roll Call.

In an interview with conservative radio host Ed Morrissey yesterday, Inhofe said people like DeMint who oppose earmarks are “brainwashed,” adding that if his fellow senators vote to ban earmarks they are voting to “trash the constitution and reject their oath of office”:

INHOFE: They’ve been demagoguing this whole thing on earmarks, but you’ll never convince the American people of it because they are so thoroughly brainwashed. You say earmark, they say, oh, earmarks are bad. But then when they stop and define the earmarks, then they think, that is what the Constitution — that is what James Madison said we are supposed to be doing in the House and the Senate.

So my concern is this…these guys will come in and the first vote they will cast is to trash the Constitution and reject their oath of office. I know that sounds extreme, but I don’t want these guys sitting around worrying about whether or not we will not do our job and whether we will cede our power to the president, or not.

Listen here :

Meanwhile, tea party leaders are furious that conservative favorites like Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) have suggested they will request earmarks. Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, told the Washington Independent’s Jesse Zwick today that the tea party will hold members accountable if they don’t support an earmark ban. “This is a fundamental issue — it’s both substantive and symbolic. … This is a vote that will never go away, like TARP,” she said. In fact, she issued a threat to those who oppose an earmark ban, saying, “in 2012 when they have aggressive, well-funded primary challengers, they’ll know why.” Indeed, her group sent an action alert to members today saying, “Our first battle with the newly empowered GOP” will be over earmarks.

Senator-Elect Rand Paul Breaks Tea Party Pledge, Now Vows To ‘Fight’ For Earmarks

By Tanya Somanader Congressional earmarks has been one of the key targets of the Tea Party’s anti-spending fervor. Angry over the House GOP’s failure to include an earmark moratorium in its “Pledge To America,” Tea Party supporters looked to their Washington outsider candidates to champion their current raison d’être.

One Tea Party hero, Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), jumped on the anti-earmark bandwagon early, making “a ban on wasteful earmark spending in Washington D.C. one of the key points of his campaign” in March. Lambasting lawmakers who opt for “photo-ops with oversized fake cardboard checks,” Paul vowed to “dismantle the culture of professional politicians” even if he “ruffled a lot of establishment feathers” while doing it.

But after joining the GOP flock on Election Day, Paul is singing a different tune. In a Wall Street Journal profile this weekend, Paul signaled an about-face on his earmark position, committing to “fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork.” After all, he’s “not that crazy” of a libertarian:

Father and son, age 47, have different styles. Asked what he wanted to do in Washington in a Wednesday morning television interview, the senator-elect said that his kids were hoping to meet the Obama girls. He has made other concessions to the mainstream. He now avoids his dad’s talk of shuttering the Federal Reserve and abolishing the income tax. In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad “symbol” of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. “I will advocate for Kentucky’s interests,” he says.

So you’re not a crazy libertarian? “Not that crazy,” he cracks.

In entertaining the idea of earmarks, Paul is bucking one of his prominent supporters, Tea Party hero Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). DeMint has repeatedly made it clear that “he wants to ban all lawmakers’ requests for specific spending.” “We can’t have 500 congressmen and senators who think it’s their job to bring home the bacon and that’s what’s going to change,” he told CBS’s The Early Show last week. Even House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) — who indicated in August that earmarks “could make their way back” if based on “merit, not muscle” — is now calling to “continue the moratorium on earmarks” in his newly-released plan “in order to decrease government spending and rein in the deficit.”

Ironically, while Paul touts his anti-establishment, Tea Party credentials, he is actually joining some in the House and Senate GOP establishment in disregarding the Tea Party’s wishes on earmarks. Presumptive House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) refused to pursue a complete ban on earmarks in an interview with Fox News last Thursday “because some things that people call earmarks here wouldn’t classify as an earmark to the American people.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was much clearer in his view yesterday, saying that ending earmarks won’t cut spending and that it’s not realistic.

If he’s already selling out his Tea Party pledges, as the conservative National Review suggests, Paul may be proving earmark-happy Rep. Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) sentiments correct: “they can be as ideological as they want before getting to Washington but will soon discover that things are quite different once inside of the beast.”

Update Rand Paul's new-found support for earmarks marks a stark flip from his anti-earmark position he held as recently as yesterday. On ABC's This Week, host Christiane Amanpour pushed Paul on the ways he'd cut spending. When she asked about earmarks, Paul declared "no more earmarks":

AMANPOUR: And what about earmarks? Would you say no to earmarks?

PAUL: No -- no more earmarks.

AMANPOUR: No more? Not even in your state?

PAUL: No. No. But I do tell people within Kentucky is I say, look, I will argue within the committee process for things that are good for Kentucky that they want and also within the context of a balanced budget.

Watch it (starting at 10:15):

House GOP leader forsakes tea parties, takes earmark ban off the table

By Stephen C. Webster If you ask Republicans around the country, they'll probably tell you that Tuesday's election results were all about pushing back against excessive government spending. Problem is, they may have forgotten to elect anyone who's actually planning on real budget cuts.

Rep. John Boehner, presumptively the next Speaker of the House and a longtime rhetorical foe of earmark spending in its present form, told a Fox News host on Thursday that the proposed ban on congressional earmarks he'd been talking up was officially off the table.

Boehner, who has personally upheld the no-earmark principle, had before the elections advocated a year-long ban on financial appropriations for individual districts. Now he says there will be a "moratorium," but has not said for how long and refuses to hold fellow Republicans to his own standard of never bringing tax dollars back to constituents.

So, why a reversal on the earmark ban? "Only because some things that people call earmarks here, uh, wouldn't classify as an earmark to the American people," he explained to Fox News host Bret Baier.

The refusal to ban earmarks should not come as a surprise to media savvy tea party Republicans. Appearing on Fox News just days before the elections, Boehner repeatedly refused to answer whether or not the party would end the practice, saying instead that a GOP-run House would not conduct "business as usual."

Sorry, tea parties, but it's not like New York Times columnist Frank Rich didn't try to warn you.

"[Whatever] Tuesday’s results, this much is certain: The Tea Party’s hopes for actually effecting change in Washington will start being dashed the morning after," he wrote on Oct. 30. "The ordinary Americans in this movement lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power no matter how well their candidates perform.

"Trent Lott, the former Senate leader and current top-dog lobbyist, gave away the game in July. 'We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,' he said, referring to the South Carolina senator who is the Tea Party’s Capitol Hill patron saint. 'As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.'"

But, co-opt them into doing what, exactly? The answer now seems quite apparent: Spending, and lots of it, which would seem to fall perfectly in line with recent history.

When Republicans controlled Congress from 1994-2006, earmark spending went from under $8 billion to over $29 billion, according to watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. All of it happened in spite of GOP pledges to the contrary.

Now that the GOP is to control House appropriations in 2011 and beyond, tea party Republicans will look to hold them accountable for every last dollar. Every piece of spending could be construed as another black mark.

"I thought [Boehner] was about listening to us? I thought he was against the waste?" a blogger for Conservatives Network wrote, responding to the earmark reversal. "I guess the past two years worth of rhetoric on spending was a lot of theatrics on his part."

This video was broadcast by Fox News on Nov. 4, 2010, as snipped by watchdog group Media Matters.