Thursday, July 17, 2003

Bill Pryor

Today is the day for Pryor's vote in the Judiciary Committee. Word is that Sen. Specter will demonstrate his lack of moderateness and will vote in favor the nomination, giving rise to a pure party-line vote, and that then there will be a filibuster.

Note this post from Balasubramania's Mania, demonstrating that even if Pryor's actions in litigation and speeches aren't enough to win your opposition, his high-level involvement with the Republican Attorney Generals' Association could be. The post links to this article from the Wash. Post, which ought to mark the beginning of serious investigations (both public and private) into the fundraising of that organization (which Pryor helped to found). Here's how it starts:

Republican state attorneys general in at least six states telephoned corporations or trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions, according to internal fundraising documents obtained by The Washington Post.

One of the documents mentions potential state actions against health maintenance organizations and suggests the attorneys general should "start targeting the HMO's" for fundraising. It also cites a news article about consolidation and regulation of insurance firms and states that "this would be a natural area for us to focus on raising money."

According to the Bham News, Democrats will request a delay in the Committee vote in order to look into this further; but I'm not holding my breath for Sen. Hatch to say "that's fair!"

[UPDATE: Via Ed Still's Votelaw, you can find a link to Nina Totenberg's informative coverage of the RAGA fundraising issue, including her discussion of the leak by Senate Republican staff to a friendly pro-Pryor writer in an effort to preempt any investigation of the issue. In fact, Ed at Votelaw was writing about RAGA fundraising and Bill Pryor six months ago, which just goes to show that everybody should be reading Votelaw.]

posted by sam 7:11 AM 0 comments

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