An article in
The New Republic Online just published today links Republican Congressman Chris Shays (CT-04) with Jack Abramoff through a trip that Shays took in 2003 to Qatar, funding for which he did not disclose. According to TNR, "
Shays's visit was paid for by The Islamic Free Market Institute, a nonprofit group founded by GOP ally Grover Norquist and run by a protégé of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to help bring Muslims into the Republican fold."
Shays has already been rocked by the defections of the usually reliably conservative Hartford Courant, which endorsed Democratic challenger Diane Farrell, and by The New York Times, which also endorsed Farrell after endorsing Shays in every competitive election since he took his seat in Congress nearly two decades ago.
Shays, who had fashioned himself as an "independent moderate Republican" is pulling close to the Bush administration in order to cash up as much as he can. Shays attended fundraisers with George Bush and Newt Gingrich in Greenwich recently. The latest poll showed him tied with Diane Farrell at 43% each. But since the undecided vote usually splits two-thirds to the challenger, as it did in their tight race last year won by Shays 52%-48%, Farrell is looking very good right now.
Recall if you will, that this is the same Chris Shays who recently remarked in a debate that the actions against prisoners at Abu Ghraib were not torture, but the actions of American soldiers who were running a "sex ring"!
This is also the same congressman who, while taking credit for pushing Tom DeLay out of the House, actually voted in 2005 with the rest of the Republicans to unilaterally change the rules governing the House Ethics Committee with the sole purpose of heading off yet another ethics investigation that was pending against DeLay.
And while he also boasts that he was instrumental in the founding of the 9/11 Commission, in fact in the crucial vote on creating the commission, the Roemer amendment, Shays voted against it.
And he's the same congressman who voted in favor of the highly controversial legislation in the Republican Energy Bill that granted blanket amnesty to producers of the likely carcinogenic gasoline additive MTBE, whose leading producers are located in Tom DeLay's Surgarland, Texas congressional district.
Keep your fingers crossed for Diane!!