Texas State Lobbying Contract With Ties To DeLay And Blunt Questioned

Today's Houston Chronicle raises questions about a $330,000 contract between the State of Texas and K Street firm, Cassidy & Associates, a lobbying shop with extremely close ties to acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt.

Todd Boulanger, a long-time Abramoff lieutenant, and husband to Roy Blunt's spokeswoman, Jessica Boulanger, manages the account for Cassidy.  Former Chief of Staff to Roy Blunt, Gregg Hartley is now the Chief Operating Officer at Cassidy.   And other former Blunt staffers work there as well.

From the Chronicle:

Todd Boulanger, who once worked closely with confessed influence peddler Jack Abramoff, now heads a group lobbying Congress for Texas under a $330,000 state contract.

Boulanger and his firm, Cassidy & Associates, were hired by the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations under a contract approved by Gov. Rick Perry, House Speaker Tom Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

This is the second time the state has hired as a congressional lobbyist someone with connections to the lobbying controversies surrounding former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

Hartley and Boulanger's firm had a similar contract with the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission.  It appears that the Missouri contract was signed after pressure from GOP politicians.  Also of note, the Missouri contract followed Team Abramoff to Cassidy from Greenberg Trauring, Jack Abramoff's previous firm.

Cassidy has been drawing increasing scrutiny as of late.   Just yesterday, Fired Up! featured a story on the lobbying contract of Cassidy Senior VP Juan Carlos Benitez with the Government of Guam.
 
In March of 2004, when Jack Abramoff was forced out at Greenberg Trauring after disclosures by the Washington Post that he had bilked his Indian gaming clients out of millions of dollars in fees, Hartley recruited Abramoff to join Cassidy & Associates.

In 2005, the DOJ and FTC wrote Missouri Governor Matt Blunt urging him to veto a bill because it was anti-competitive and created an unfair advantage for the realtors. 

After Blunt received the letters from the DOJ and FTC urging a veto, the Missouri Realtors Association hired Hartley's firm for a one month contract for a fee of $50,0000. 

Hartley's firm was charged with urging Governor Blunt to sign the bill over the objection of the DOJ and FTC.  Blunt ultimately signed the bill.

Jared Craighead, a former staffer to Rep. Roy Blunt, and a former lobbyist at Cassidy & Associates under Hartley, served as Governor Blunt's Deputy Chief of Staff at the time Hartley was lobbying Blunt to sign the bill over the objection of the DOJ and FTC.

Here is a link to more background on the Hartley's $50,000 contract to lobby the Governor.  The Cassidy/Realtors contract was also  featured recently in a NY Times story. 

According to a profile of Hartley in The Hill, reprinted on the Cassidy & Associates website, as of November 2003, Hartley's daughter Hallie was employed at Alexander Strategy Group.  It is unclear whether she worked there while Hartley was working on the Hill for Blunt.

As Rep. Roy Blunt struggles to become the new Tom DeLay, it's beginning to look like Cassidy & Associates is working to become the new Alexander Strategy Group.