Lewis Represents His District — Via Pal’s Lobby FirmThe folks at National Journal noticed a strange pattern in the news coming out of the investigation into House Approps chief Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and the Copeland Lowery lobbying firm: so far, six towns and counties and one university have been identified as having hired Copeland Lowery to lobby Lewis for them.
And they’re all located in Lewis’ district.
Isn’t Jerry Lewis in Congress for the very purpose of representing the interests of those towns and counties? Regardless, the seven have paid to Copeland Lowery (headed by longtime Lewis pal Bill Lowery) over $4 million in fees, the National Journal finds. And they were represented by Jeff Shockey, a longtime Lewis aide and confidante, and a native of that very district. In return, they’ve been helped to nice slices of the taxpayers’ pie.
Is that really how the system is supposed to work?
Update: According to a new BusinessWeek article, the practice is more widespread than I expected. The magazine found 800 state and local governments or government organizations which had a private lobbyist in Washington, D.C. However, the piece doesn’t identify any other lawmakers who have as exclusive and brazen a setup as Lewis has with Copeland Lowery.
