The Race For Majority Leader: It's A Contest Between Two K Street Conservatives

Bloomberg has a piece today on the ties that both Rep. Roy Blunt and Rep. John Boehner have to K Street. Just think of it as the contest between the K Street Conservatives.

In the story, Rep. Jeff Flake states that both Blunt and Boehner are too close to K Street to give the GOP any kind of fresh start and suggests a dark horse candidate may emerge.

Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, said concerns that the two men are too close to Washington's K Street lobbying corridor may encourage a dark-horse candidate to run against them. ``We have three weeks until this election, and a lot can happen between now and then,'' Flake said.

Gregg Hartley, Blunt's former Chief of Staff and now the Vice President of Cassidy & Associates sums up Roy's ties to K Street and DeLay nicely:

Beginning in 1999, DeLay tapped Blunt to harness Washington's lobbyist community into a force that could help win votes on issues ranging from a $1.3 trillion tax cut to a $720 billion Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Blunt was DeLay's ambassador to the community, said Gregg Hartley, Blunt's former chief of staff and now vice chairman of Cassidy & Associates, Washington's second-biggest lobbying firm by revenue.

``We formalized the process of reaching out to them,'' Hartley said. ``You could talk to Tom or Tom's people, or Roy or Roy's people. It was all the same.''

The story also mentions some of Blunt's work on behalf of Abramoff's Indian gaming clients, though it doesn't mention it all. 

Ironically, Blunt's spokeswoman in the story, Jessica Boulanger, is married to Team Abramoff lobbyist Todd Boulanger. 

Boehner also has issues.

From the story:

Boehner, 56, who has been in Congress since 1991, has said he and DeLay have had conflicts in the past, and other lawmakers say they are not close. Even so, Boehner has strong connections to lobbyists: He met weekly with leading lobbyists to enlist their support and discuss strategy during his four years as House Republican Conference chairman, from 1995 to 1998.

Sallie Mae

The top donor to Boehner's leadership PAC in 2003-2004 was SLM Corp., the Reston, Virginia-based student-loan company better known as Sallie Mae. SLM contributed $65,170 to Boehner's Freedom Project, more than twice as much as the second-biggest donor, New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The money came as the House Education and Workforce Committee, which Boehner chairs, prepared to write new legislation governing student loans.

In 1995, Boehner handed out campaign checks from the tobacco industry to members on the House floor at a time when lawmakers were considering eliminating a tobacco subsidy.

Representative Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican, said he believes that Boehner is even closer to lobbyists than Blunt. ``The problem John faces is that he's so close to K Street; that's the challenge he's got,'' said Shays, who's backing Blunt.