Santorum and K Street

In yesterday's post I linked to an Inquirer article on Rick Santorum and his current attempts to portray himself as a reformer. In that article Grover Norquist, who claims ownership of the K Street Project claimed that Santorum "never had any formal or informal relationship with the K Street Project." Santorum is (was?) the senate's liaison with lobbyists. He meets with a group of GOP lobbyists every other week. According to the Inky "They discuss lobbying firm's openings but it has not been about putting pressure on people to hire individuals."

In 2002, the Washington Post ( 02 August 2002) ran an article called "GOP Plan To Limit Lobbyists Targeted; Senate Ethics Panel Says Political Party Shouldn't Be Factor" by Jim VandeHei

The research project, headed by GOP activist Grover Norquist, was discussed in June in a private meeting in the Capitol hosted by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). Several Republican lawmakers already have copies of the dossier, dubbed the "K Street Project," according to GOP aides.

Phone messages left at Santorum's Senate office, which was closed for the night, were not returned.

"Any effort to deny access to . . . those who do not share a Member's party affiliation, have not made political contributions, or have made political contributions to those not in a Member's party would appear to violate" Senate rules, the ethics committee says in a letter it plans to send to all 100 senators today, according to the source.

A spokeswoman for the committee's chairman, Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), declined to comment on the matter.

The letter will be co-signed by the committee's top Republican, Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.).

Norquist's response?

"They're just being stupid political people, taking serious ethics and trying to make a political point."

Later in the same article:

Santorum, the Senate GOP's liaison to lobbyists, has advocated an aggressive strategy to persuade companies and associations to hire more conservatives, according to GOP officials. He meets twice a month with top GOP lobbyists to discuss such issues.

After one such meeting, Santorum and others sent word to Boeing Corp., a huge government contractor, that they were displeased with its hiring of a Democrat as a top lobbyist.

I found a lot of similar articles when I started looking around but thought I would bore or infuriate you with just the one.

If you want a longer description of K Street, read this article "Welcome to the machine: How the GOP disciplined K Street and made Bush supreme," by
Confessore, Nicholas in the July / August 2003 issue of the Washington Monthly