Oh the pace quickens.
Only weeks ago, scandal-plagued House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) issued a categorical denial that he’d ever “recommended a lobbyist to any constituent, contractor or anyone seeking federal funds.”
Now documentary evidence surfaces that Lewis lied.
And when I say ‘documentary evidence’ I would be referring to a letter from Lewis to a constituent recommending the lobbying services of Tom Skancke of The Skancke Company.
In Lewis’s letter to the County of San Bernardino (the county I grew up in, by the way and which Lewis represents), he wrote “It is a pleasure to be writing this letter on Tom’s behalf and strongly recommend San Bernardino County’s retaining The Skancke Company’s services.”
I’m not sure which is more upsetting: Lewis’s lies and corruption or that someone has to go through life with the name Skancke.
One way or another, it ain’t pretty.
Late Update: My apologies! He didn’t just lie once. He lied twice. I was thinking of when Lewis told NBC in early June that “I have never recommended a lobbyist to any constituent, contractor or anyone seeking federal funds.” But I didn’t know that Lewis also lied in early May when he said “I have never told a local representative or someone seeking to work on a federal project that they must have a lobbyist representing them. It is an ironclad rule in my office that we do not recommend lobbyists, even if a constituent asks for that recommendation.” Again, my apologies.