All posts by Lucas O'Connor

Election 2012, San Diego

Bob Filner declares for San Diego Mayor… sort of

2 Comments

Cross-posted and tweaked from Two Cathedrals

Breaking yesterday through Twitter and evolving since, Congressman Bob Filner has apparently made an official public announcement that he’ll be running for mayor of San Diego.

As campaign roll-outs go, it wasn’t the most elegant beginning, and the legitimate process story continues to bubble up. A full launch can still be done in the future without losing significant impact, but in the meantime, the story and its continued unfolding underscores that the horserace has begun no matter what, and the vacuum will be filled.

While some will continue to hash through the reliability of information and the ‘is he REALLY?’ sideshow, what is clear is that Filner is now considered a part of the mayoral race; which means there’s a Democrat in the race, which means that two sides are presumed in discussion of mayoral issues.

It’s a big deal in San Diego, because we haven’t had two full-strength sides engaged in a city-wide debate in a number of years. It didn’t happen during last year’s Prop D campaign. It didn’t happen in the 2008 mayoral race when Democrats failed to field a viable candidate. The 2004 mayoral race turned into the fluke three-way race between Republicans Dick Murphy and Ron Roberts and last-minute write-in Democrat Donna Frye. You would have to go back more than a decade for the last time we’ve had a legitimate campaign addressing the comprehensive future of the city in which both major parties were seriously engaged.

Filner’s entry into the discussion addresses that, because he has the experience and personal campaign infrastructure to overcome existing deficiencies that have hamstrung previous efforts at a full-scale, two-sided debate about the issues that face this city.

And that means that this isn’t just a referendum anymore on Republican candidates. Not on Councilmember Carl DeMaio’s extreme views, or whether Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher has the clout to stand up to downtown developers. Nor is it just musing over whether District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis can indulge enough of her moderate tendencies to pick up establishment Democrats. It’s a real debate.

Now we can have a stronger conversation about how pension reform doesn’t have to be debilitating to be effective. About how we don’t have to stop investing in the basic quality of life for our neighborhoods to put our fiscal house in order. That we can remain committed to smart development and addressing blight without handing over the keys of city hall to developers.

Looking forward a bit to the musical chairs, newly-elected State Senator Juan Vargas (40th) is expected to run for Filner’s vacated seat (Vargas previously challenged Filner in the primary), and newly-elected Assemblymember Ben Hueso (79th) is expected to be among those aiming to succeed Vargas. So the fun will hardly be contained moving forward.

California

Issa Watch Goes to Washington

I manage the IssaWatch project for the Courage Campaign. Rick Jacobs visited Chairman Issa’s office earlier this week to deliver a message from Courage members. He recounts his experience below.

With a petition containing over 18,000 signatures from Courage Campaign members –including thousands from residents of California’s 49th Congressional District — I stopped by Mr. Issa’s DC office on Wednesday to personally deliver our request that the Chairman address the growing disconnect between his record and rhetoric on the issue of transparency. Specifically, to publicly post his schedule online.

We’d written through official channels to request an appointment; we still have not heard back.

As you’ll see in the attached short video shot by our friends at Media Matters, I met Chairman Issa’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Veronica Wong, and asked her if Mr. Issa plans to respond to our request. She would not say. The saddest part of this whole thing is that Mr. Issa is the Co-Founder of the Transparency Caucus. But as you will see in the video, his Deputy Chief of Staff had no idea where he was. I guess Mr. Transparency has something to hide from everyone.

Thanks for stepping up to sign that letter. It’s a big deal to walk into Mr. Issa’s office and show how many people are watching.  That’s our job: Holding him accountable and even over time, setting an agenda that serves the people, not just Mr. Issa and his 150 hand-picked special interests.

Uncategorized

Issa to Obama: I’m rubber and you’re glue.

I proudly manage the IssaWatch.com project for the Courage Campaign. 

As Sunshine Week — an annual, national push to make government more open and transparent — begins, we at Courage Campaign are calling for Darrell Issa to back up his rhetoric with action. After resisting calls for his own disclosure while criticizing the Obama Administration for similar, we're calling on Rep. Issa to disclose all the meetings he has with lobbyists. While this sort of hypocrisy is nothing new from Issa, the double-standard is particularly audacious. Rick Jacobs recently sent this message to Courage members explaining the effort.

I can't believe what Issa just said:

“The current lack of transparency lends credence to the perception that bureaucrats are picking winners and losers in a politicized environment where the winners are favored constituencies of the Administration.”-Darrell Issa (1)

What?! Lack of transparency? This coming from the Chairman of one of the most powerful Congressional Committees, who refuses to disclose which lobbyists he meets with?

Tell Issa to speak for himself. Sign our petition here demanding he disclose who he meets with.

Look, access is everything. That’s what our friend Rena learned while waiting in vain for three hours outside a private country club hoping to talk to her Congressman, Darrell Issa, about the challenges she’s facing as a small businesswoman, a mom, and a hard-working taxpayer with pre-existing health conditions.

When President Obama recently asked members of Congress to post who they are meeting with online — so the public knows who is really steering our ship of state — he gave people like Rena hope. Unfortunately, her Congressman dismissed this idea out of hand (2). But in doing so, he invited an obvious question: What does Darrell Issa, one of the most powerful people in government, have to hide?

Click here to sign our petition demanding that Darrell Issa let the sunshine in. Tell him to disclose who he’s meeting with.

As I wrote recently in a San Diego Union Tribune op-ed (3), the first thing Issa did as chair of the powerful Government Oversight Committee — after months of right-wing media grandstanding — was ask corporate lobbyists and right-wing DC insiders for wish lists to guide his agenda. His next move was building an oversight staff full of walking conflicts of interest (4), and appointing subcommittee chairs whose campaigns have been bankrolled by the very industries they are supposed to regulate.

Then, after voting to let insurance companies once again deny coverage to the 331,000 constituents (5) like Rena with pre-existing conditions, Issa held hearings on bank bailouts and the mortgage meltdown.  And with one in 10 homeowners in his district facing foreclosure (6), he inexplicably didn’t call a single banker or loan servicer to testify before his committee. Not one.

If we’re going to find out why, we need to find out who has access to Darrell Issa. Click here to sign our petition demanding that Issa come clean.

We already know who doesn't have access to Darrell Issa. Now it's time for Darrell Issa to come clean about who does.

Thank you for standing with us,

Rick

P.S. Darrell Issa is the richest member of Congress, supported by deep-pocketed corporate interests, but if we all join together, we can win this. Can you chip in $5 today and help us continue to hold him accountable?

 (1) http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/03/09/issa-zeros-in-on-health-law-waivers/?mod=google_news_blog

(2) http://thehill.com/homenews/house/140441-rep-issa-obama-feigns-perfection-on-lobbying-rules

(3) http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/feb/24/chairman-issa-oversight-for-whom

(4) http://www.watchdoginstitute.org/2011/02/28/industry-insiders-score-jobs-on-issas-team/

(5) http://issawatch.couragecampaign.org/index.php/page/65

(6) http://issawatch.couragecampaign.org/index.php/page/74

Uncategorized

Laura Richardson and still more ethics questions

1 Comment

Laura Richardson is back in the news again for unpleasantness, with a vicious resignation letter from her district scheduler suggesting pretty clearly that there’s an ethics investigation ongoing. In November, it was reported that Richardson staffers were interviewed around allegations that Richardson had improperly forced staffers to volunteer on her campaign. At the time, Richardson said “There is no ethics investigation. They just had somebody interviewing my staff.” Richardson strongly pushed back elsewhere, denying that she was again the target of an ethics inquiry, but the letter suggests there may be more going on:

I am also hurt because on more than one occasion I was asked to do a task or coordinate an eventthat was on the ethical borderline and not in my job description; things that I was never properly trained on or warned about, and later caused me to be deposed by an ethics investigator with a lawyer present.

The letter also discusses “repeated emotional abuse and constant conflict” in a “toxic and hostile work environment,” so it certainly seems like there’s something unpleasant going on here. The initial, uncorroborated report cited extraordinarily high staff turnover in Richardson’s office, and a range of concerns about management style.

As the Calitics team has chronicled in the past, Laura Richardson has a long history of ethically questionable behavior. Most notably, allegations of preferential treatment on foreclosures, allowing property to fall into dramatic disrepair, failing to disclose loans, and a particularly pricy car allowance.

Not to mention, as is often the case in safe districts, Richardson’s initial election was not exactly a shining beacon of democratic idealism. She essentially won a seat in Congress for life by garnering less than 12,000 votes and under 38% in the special election primary for the open seat, and has kept up a steady stream of headlines for ethical problems ever since. The whole combination has already sparked speculation about a potential replacement, although that seems more than a few steps down the line. It is, however, probably a good occasion to re-consider why less than 12,000 people are able to install someone in Congress effectively for life — especially given this illustration of what it can mean.

Health Care, San Francisco

Standing up for Planned Parenthood

23 Comments

With the exception of Mary Bono Mack, California’s House delegation voted down party lines last week to revoke all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Nominally, the move was to prevent federal funding from supporting the full range of legal, reproductive choices to which women are entitled. But thanks to the long-standing Hyde Amendment compromise, federal funds cannot fund abortion services anyways. And so this move — which will not reduce the deficit and will eliminate jobs rather than create any — is simply a direct attack on basic primary and preventive health care.

Let’s be clear. At best, the rhetoric about reproductive choice used by opponents of Planned Parenthood is an excuse; an attractive smokescreen. This is a fundamental attack on basic health services for underserved communities of all kinds throughout the country. It’s a revocation of access to basic breast, cervical and other cancer screenings, basic health exams, HIV testing, contraception and birth control for many millions of Americans- including an estimated 1.4 million who would be cut off from their health care by the Pence amendment.

And it isn’t as though other existing health programs for these communities are in a position to pick up the slack. Prospective budget cuts stretch as far as the eye can see, and wide swaths of our communities are already struggling to have basic needs met. Heck, San Diego doesn’t even have a county hospital. Against this backdrop, we have Planned Parenthood — a program with nearly a century of proven effectiveness and serving millions each year — targeted specifically because it’s been such an effective support mechanism.

Many lawmakers remain expressly opposed to the wide-ranging health care reforms passed last year to expand care to millions of Americans who have struggled without for generations. And many have already assembled long resumes of attempts to prevent women from having health care freedom and access in whatever form possible. They haven’t had much luck yet repealing or dismantling the reforms from last year, though they continue to try. In the meantime, they’re pressing anywhere possible to undermine the basic health infrastructure in this country- the pieces that provide care to those who insurance companies don’t find sufficiently profitable.

This Saturday, there are solidarity events for those who are protesting in Wisconsin for basic workers rights. And there are also events to support the vital work of Planned Parenthood scheduled in San Francisco and Los Angeles. You can also get more info on Twitter at @WalkforChoice

Grabbing for everything at once, hoping that not everything can be defended at once isn’t an entirely unreasonable strategy. But it’s unconscionable to cut off millions of Americans from the most basic of preventive care and life-saving screenings for cancer and HIV, from access to fundamental, legal and widely accepted birth control and contraceptives. Which is why it’s so important that we resist every time to defend vital elements of our community-health structure.

Uncategorized

Darrell Issa prepares echo chamber to blast Recovery Act

2 Comments

I’m proud to work with the Courage Campaign on the IssaWatch project where this was first posted.

As mentioned briefly on Monday, the Oversight Committee is gearing up for a Thursday morning hearing entitled “Waste And Abuse: The Refuse Of The Federal Spending Binge.” Over-capitalization and histrionics aside, the witness list marks Issa’s best attempt to date to assemble the ’27 Yankees of Obama administration critics to address the Oversight Committee.

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given Issa’s known ties to the broad network of Koch Brothers influence, but a number of the Koch’s heaviest hitters are represented here. Meanwhile, there’s no sign of anyone who might offer a perspective that doesn’t fit with Issa’s pre-established narrative of opposition to the Recovery Act.

The list of witnesses Issa’s assembled below the fold.

~ Gene Dodaro is the Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office. The GAO is tasked with overseeing performance and accountability for the federal government. Dodaro is also currently in the middle of an Oversight investigation being spearheaded by Issa looking into whether the GAO destroyed evidence surrounding an amended report.

~ Dr. Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center has a long track record of pushing deeply conservative perspectives on spending, budget, and other fiscal issues. Her criticisms of the cost of health care reform is currently cited on the Koch Industries website, and she’s such a favorite of the Kochs that she was among the featured speakers at the Koch network’s June meeting in Aspen, where she helped outline the master plan through the election and into the future.

She can help provide some of her own introduction by way of her personal disclosure: “I work for the Mercatus Center and Charles Koch is the chairman of our board and one of our main donors.”

But it goes much deeper than that. The Mercatus Center was founded by Rich Fink — an executive vice president at Koch Industries, former president of Koch Foundations and currently the president of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Fink also leads Koch Industries’ lobbying efforts in DC — which has spent more than $50 million to influence members of Congress in just the last five years according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And on and on.

In the years since Mercatus was founded, its host George Mason University has received more than $30 million from the Kochs.

~ Debra Cammer comes from IBM Public Sector. IBM put on a full court press in pursuit of ARRA funds, specifically around billions spent on providing the IT infrastructure to track and implement projects throughout the country. IBM put considerable resources into providing ‘bridge’ funding to help IT projects get off the ground and access ARRA support.

~ Vincent Frakes appears as the Federal Policy Manager at the Center for Health Transformation. This is a front-group for the health-care industry, insurance providers and other huge corporations used to oppose health care reform. It’s in his capacity at CHT that Frakes is also a featured member of the “Newt Team” — a network of organizational representatives that Newt Gingrich promotes for media appearances and speeches.

~ Also testifying is Thomas Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste. That organization received particular attention back in 2006 from the Senate while they investigated the many crimes of Jack Abramoff. A Senate investigation found that Citizens Against Government Waste was among several organizations who played at the edge of the law with Abramoff:

The Senate report…states that the nonprofit groups probably violated their tax-exempt status “by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff’s direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff’s clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff’s clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff’s clients.”

CAGW is also notorious for providing astroturf cover to a wide range of corporate interests — including big tobacco, Merrill Lynch and Exxon-Mobil.

~ Finally, Andrew Moylan is the Vice President of Government Affairs at the conservative National Taxpayers Union. The Kochtopus has provided thousands to the National Taxpayers Union over the years, and Charles Koch was once a member of the NTU board of directors. Like CAGW, NTU has also received tens of thousands from big tobacco.

And so, for two hours on Thursday morning, American tax dollars will be spent on a hearing brazenly designed to tell Darrell Issa that he’s right. It won’t explore the many benefits of Recovery projects, nor respond to the struggles of Issa’s own constituents here in California. Instead of working to create jobs, it will be a two-hour, taxpayer-funded party to implicitly criticize President Obama and his administration. But what we need is a plan. We need jobs. This isn’t that.

You can follow this project on Facebook and Twitter.

Uncategorized

Rep. Issa: Investigate This Now

For weeks with the IssaWatch project, I've been working with the Courage Campaign to chronicle Darrell Issa's solicitation of conservative think tanks, industry groups and corporations for guidance on his committee's oversight agenda. We think it's time that Darrell Issa also hear from the constituents, Californians, and Americans who are relying on him for non-partisan, unbiased oversight in DC — not just those who demand access because they're rich and powerful.
Below the fold is the email that we've sent to thousands of Courage members asking for their input.


Last Saturday, the Courage Campaign helped organize a protest of the “Billionaire’s Caucus” — a secret political strategy meeting hosted by oil conglomerate Koch Industries for big polluters, Wall Street robber barons, right-wing media personalities, and those who do their bidding in Washington. They’ve given tens of thousands to House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and his new Subcommittee Chairs. And now he’s giving them an unprecedented opportunity to pad their profits at taxpayer expense.  We will not let this stand.
Darrell Issa knows where his bread is buttered.
That’s why the first thing he did as House Oversight Committee Chair was to ask corporate lobbyists and his rich industry friends to tell him what to investigate.  In other words, Issa’s top priority was to make government even more responsive to the wealthy and well-connected.
It’s time to remind Darrell Issa who he works for.
From delivering earmarks to campaign contributors to holding secret meetings with lobbyists, Darrell Issa has a bad habit of treating his constituents as an afterthought.
Unfortunately, not one of the fat cats who received Issa’s letter are among the 1 in 10 homeowners in his district facing foreclosure, his 331,000 constituents with pre-existing health conditions, the 2.27 million Californians who are out of work, or the countless others who await the return of loved ones from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s time that Rep. Issa listened to the hard working families on main street—not just the lobbyists on K Street.
Chairman Issa works for us, as Californians and Americans, not for a select few corporate lobbyists. Help us remind him, by telling him what you want to investigate.
Thanks for your hard work,
Lucas
P.S.  Time and again, we’ve shown the only way to compete with big corporate power is with people power.  Please share this urgent message along to five friends and urge them to make their voices heard.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Election 2012

Who will be GOP’s sacrificial lamb against DiFi?

1 Comment

Last week, PPP polling asked the Twitterverse what challengers they should test against Dianne Feinstein for her 2012 re-election campaign. It solicited a wide range of suggestions — some serious, some decidedly less so — including testing other Democrats given our state’s new top-two primary.

The results rolled out yesterday, finding to (hopefully) nobody’s surprise that DiFi “stomps the field.” The full pdf of results are here, where PPP doubled down on the dire, declaring “No hope for Whitman, Fiorina, Arnold, anyone.”

Before abandoning us for the Emerald City, Robert had an excellent series breaking down the long-term realignment that’s settling in in California, and these PPP numbers certainly reflect that. But it goes beyond simply an overwhelming lead for DiFi due to her perpetually superhuman support. PPP, through their own calculations and twitter suggestions, couldn’t come up with a single potential Republican candidate that hasn’t already run a statewide campaign.

And of all those tested- Tom Campbell, Carly Fiorina, Darrell Issa, Steve Poizner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meg Whitman- only Campbell managed a net positive approval rating (+3). And he only pulled that off by being notably less known than the rest of the field.

Arnold’s at negative 40. eMeg a solid minus-22 and Fiorina at minus-19. A bare majority have an opinion of Steve Poizner, putting him at 13 points to the negative. And of the 48% who have an opinion of Darrell Issa, it’s an unfavorable one by a 2-1 margin.

In other words, it’s impossible to run statewide as a Republican without alienating people faster than you win them over. It hasn’t just left all recent GOP contenders in a deep hole, but it should scare off anyone thinking of using a doomed DiFi challenge as a boost to higher office- just running statewide from the right is a career-ender. The half-dozen California Republicans with leadership positions in the House have no reason to come back and end their careers, and the new House members ought to see these numbers as reason not to bother.

It’s a cycle that’ll feed on itself as long as the Republican party is set on a dead-ender agenda of hyper-conservative purity.

Uncategorized

Issa’s double standard marches on

1 Comment

I’m proud to work with the Courage Campaign on the IssaWatch project where this was first posted.

Darrell Issa continues this week to apply a wildly different standard of disclosure to himself as compared to the Obama Administration. Issa’s request for a wide-ranging document release from the Department of Homeland Security concerned alleged politicizing of FOIA requests didn’t devlier what he was looking for, so he’s now refocusing and expanding the request. As the Hill reports, Issa is

asking for copies of e-mails between key White House officials. He is also seeking a series of interviews with top-level staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as part of his probe into the Obama administration’s transparency.

Last week, Issa requested that 180 agencies send him records showing how fast they respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. He also asked the agencies to explain why some FOIA requests are delayed more than others.

Using the issue as cover, Issa recently called for in-depth tracking of all people and organizations that submit Freedom of Information Act requests. Ostensibly intended by Issa as a way to avoid politicizing the process, it would provide a shocking amount of tracking information to the federal government, and is part of a broader trend by Issa to chill dissent and citizen oversight.

In lodging a complaint over Homeland Security’s responsiveness, Issa wrote:

This directive is inconsistent with your pledge to identify and produce documents expeditiously, and it raises questions about the Department’s commitment to the President’s effort to create an ‘unprecedented level of openness in government’

The tone and content of this objection is particularly odd, however, given that Issa himself has consistently rejected such calls for openness out of his own office. He has declined to publicly post the letter he sent to industry groups and conservative think tanks soliciting agenda items for the Oversight Committee. He has resisted releasing the responses he’s gotten from the letter, agreeing only to release them in mid-February with spin added by his office and leaving CREW to seek the letters on their own. Odd that, if Issa is sincerely concerned about transparency as a way to address concerns of politicizing government, he would be so deeply opposed to being open about his own dealings.

Further, Issa’s concerns about alleged politicizing of government doesn’t seem to fit with his angry response to President Obama’s suggestion that Congress make its lobbyist ties public. Rather than welcome the opportunity for citizens to have more information about who’s influencing their elected officials, Issa turned bitterly defensive. He lashed out at Obama for not being perfect either, and tried his best to make the case for lobbyist confidentiality. If Issa is concerned about politicizing the process and wanting more transparency, it’s odd that he would attack even the notion of improved lobbyist disclosure.

If Darrell Issa is serious about a more open, less political government, he needs to provide the model himself. He can’t just talk the talk, criticizing the Obama administration for not being responsive enough to him specifically- he has to walk the walk by taking ownership of his own actions and applying the same standards to his own office. He owes it to the country and his constituents.

You can follow this project on Facebook and Twitter.

San Diego

The Koch Brothers and Darrell Issa

13 Comments

This weekend, Rancho Mirage will play host to what's often called the “Billionaire's Caucus,” a regular top secret meeting hosted by the Koch Brothers, at which the wealthiest of the wealthy — together with right wing media personalities, lawmakers, and even judges — gather to plot their national political agenda. The meeting has taken on even greater importance in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2009 Citizens United decision, which effectively opened the door to unlimited corporate influence on U.S. elections.

Trying to list all the beneficiaries of the Kochs and their rich friends would be a daunting task. Suffice it to say, they are the wallet for just about every right wing cause you can think of — from tea party candidates and ballot measures like California’s pro-pollution Prop 23, to right wing think tanks like the Cato Institute and astro-turf front groups like Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity.
One of the country’s worst polluters — with business interests in everything from healthcare to the derivatives trading that helped push our economy off a cliff, the Koch brothers have spread hundreds of millions of dollars to protect their narrow ideological and financial interests over the years — ensuring that the agenda of billionaires is inserted at every level of our government and political discourse, and often at the expense of the middle class. No one has worked harder to kill Wall Street Reform, Healthcare Reform, or Energy Reform than the Kochs.
This is the meeting where the Kochs and their allies come together to refine their strategy; The billionaires prepare the agenda, which is packaged by the right-wing media echo chamber to sow fear and anxiety amongst unwitting foot soldiers who provide “grassroots cover” for right wing lawmakers as they push policies that undermine the middle class in DC.
It’s a sophisticated shell game that the Kochs and their allies are playing — steeped in secrecy, profit motive and ideological extremism — as described in a profile written by Jane Mayer of New Yorker Magazine. Past attendees at Koch sponsored events include Glenn Beck, and Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Scalia. This weekend’s junket will also be attended by newly minted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Ultimately, the tentacles of the 'Kochtopus' stretch out in all directions from this meeting.
And its hardly a stretch to think that Darrell Issa will be an important part of their future plans.
In just the past five years, the Koch network has spent nearly $44 million lobbying Congress on oil & gas issues. High-polluting industry is their primary business, and it's obviously proven to be exceptionally profitable. Unsurprisingly, they're in no hurry to give up that profitability or the influence it's afforded them. This week we've also learned that concern over stronger EPA regulations on pollution have dominated feedback from industry representatives to Darrell Issa's letter requesting suggestions of regulations to repeal.
And according to the Center on Responsive Politics, the Koch network has sunk at least $200,000 into the Oversight Committee. More than 87% has gone to committee Republicans, including more than $100,000 in support of Republicans currently on the committee. The list includes Chairman Issa and five subcommittee chairs (starred):
Rep. Darrell E. Issa (CA-49) – $12,500
Rep. John L. Mica (FL-07) – $7,500
Rep. Patrick T. McHenry* (NC-10) – $2,500
Rep. Jason Chaffetz* (UT-03) – $2,500
Rep. Connie Mack (FL-14) – $15,000
Rep. Tim Walberg (MI-7) – $20,000
Rep. James Lankford* (OK-5) – $10,000
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25) – $250
Rep. Pat Meehan (PA-7) – $7,500
Rep. Trey Gowdy* (SC-4) – $7,500
Rep. Frank Guinta (NH-1) – $5,000
Rep. Dennis Ross* (FL-12) – $10,000
Rep. Mike Kelly (PA-3) – $2,500
Issa's personally amassed a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, so he fits right in with the Kochs and the other big-money heavy hitters in the same orbit. His connections to these industries are nothing new, just like he's no stranger to the vast influence of the Koch brothers. Nor is his antipathy towards the EPA and climate science a recent development.
The web of financial support from the Right's heaviest hitters weaves all through Issa's personal career and the key members of his committee. All those heavy hitters are gathering this weekend to plan their strategy, and we can reasonably expect that Issa will be an important piece. Where an independent watchdog might be focused on investigating the deep influence of this unlimited money on our government and the policies that have created an ever shrinking middle class, Issa has taken the opposite tack. He's already thrown open the doors of the committee to allow many of the folks heading to Rancho Mirage the chance to rewrite their own rules. This weekend, they'll be working out what to do with the access.
Unlike past years however, this weekend a counter-protest is planned for the Kochs' event, as is a national campaign to expose their broad reach, nefarious tactics, and destructive impact on the middle class. You can read more about that here.
 
(I work on the IssaWatch project at the Courage Campaign)