Pennsylvania's Senator Santorum is addicted to lobbyists. The
GOP's poster boy for ethics reform who was forced to take a
backseat role because of his K-Street ties can't seem to wean himself off their influence for more than a few weeks at a time.
When he headed up the Republican K-Street project, Santorum would meet with lobbyists in the Capitol on Tuesdays, at 8:30 a.m., for an hour. He'd go through line after line of lobbyists, pressuring them to hire Republicans in exchange for special access to top officials. When he came under fire for those meetings, he pledged on January 30th to end them cold turkey. And he did. For a little over a month. Then little Ricky was overcome with a craving for lobbyists, and, with his willpower for clean government so weak, he gave in. Today, we learn that Santorum still gets his lobbying fix. Not in the halls of the Capitol, not anymore. That would be too obvious. Like any addict, Santorum tries to hide his relapse:
Instead of being held in the Capitol, however, the recent meetings were conducted nearby. The first was held about three blocks away, at the headquarters of National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the second was held around the corner from that building, at the Heritage Foundation.
He is sneaking around with the same crowd of influencers, riding the high of peddling power. Well, not the same crowd. Because when you relapse, you relapse hard. So Santorum's new lobbying gang includes extra special 20 to 30 people, in addition to about 40 of his old friends.
No matter how loud they promise "reform," no matter how far they try to distance themselves from Republican lobbyists like Abramoff and the rest of the K-Street project, Republicans are and always will be hooked on corruption. Addicted to impropriety, down to their very core.