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Prominent Republican
The National Association of Manufacturers got its own prominent Republican last year when it hired Engler, who in 1990 defeated a Democratic incumbent governor in Michigan partly by railing against rising property taxes.
Engler has moved the manufacturers into new political fights such as judicial confirmations. In August, the group for the first time in its 110-year history endorsed a president's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge John Roberts, 50, whom Bush picked to serve as chief justice. Engler says his organization's analysis suggests that Roberts won't legislate from the bench, creating new plaintiffs' rights that would hurt companies.
``The vast majority of cases before the federal courts relate to business issues such as contract law, employment law, regulatory issues and property rights,'' Engler says. ``We have an interest in this confirmation, and we intend to participate in the debate.''
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(A bit more down that away)
The whole
article details who is buying our congresscritters and how.
Why didn't the opposition party advertise this? Why did they tackle every other issue except this? I'm not a genius. I'm not a professional psychobabbler. Why do I know what's going on, roughly, yet the opposition party doesn't seem to have a fucking clue? I can only hope to be wrong.
We have names. It's time to make connections.
Update [2005-9-23 23:23:27 by jobiuspublius]:
I should have included the following so we can immediatly see what the Roberts vote will be like.
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Lobbying for Cafta
At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, 67, held a reception on a boat docked on the Hudson River for favored candidates and potential contributors. While lobbying for Cafta, Donohue pledged to give double weight to the vote when calculating the next round of ratings that will help determine election support from his group.
In the case of Cafta, each group played a different role. The Business Roundtable, whose chairman is New York-based Pfizer Inc. CEO Hank McKinnell, 62, was in charge of counting votes and giving updates to other members of the coalition. McKinnell and about 65 other CEOs also met with lawmakers such as Frist and Reid and told them that passage of the agreement was crucial to convincing the rest of the world that the U.S. supports a dismantling of international trade barriers, says John Castellani, president of the roundtable.
Castellani, 54, says his organization brings CEOs to Washington to talk to members of Congress and administration officials. ``We do that regularly, meet with the secretaries of Treasury and Commerce and with the White House economic advisers and staff, because they want to know what's going on in the economy,'' he says.
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These people are behind all the last minute arm twisting and vote delaying that we saw in CAFTA.
BTW, now "we" know why some "working class" people "vote against their interest".
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Election Role
The Gang of Six is also increasingly becoming involved in elections, getting employees of member companies out to vote and campaigning for lawmakers such as South Dakota Senator John Thune, who defeated former Democratic leader Tom Daschle in 2004. In addition, Engler's group supports Bush's first nominee to fill one of two Supreme Court openings.
Engler's group honors lawmakers who support its positions consistently by having local company leaders set up testimonials in their home states. The Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3 million U.S. companies, assigns ratings to legislators based on their voting records and uses them to determine endorsements for elections.
The chamber last year gave Senator Frist a 100 percent rating, while Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy got a rating of 31 percent.
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