I have not lived in Arizona for a long time. Now that I understand what Rick Renzi is really like, I feel that I let people down by not being there when it counted. I was a HS classmate of Paul Babbit, who lost to a Renzi dirty trick in 2004. I can not think of two people who are such polar opposites, unless it is John Doolittle and Charlie Brown.
The news breaking today at The Hill is bad new for Renzi. I only wish that someone had been looking at this type of stuff in time to have helped out Paul.
Details on the jump.
I know that land of enchantment has been educating everyone about Renzi, but she has a good diary up tonight regarding Mr. Did2much, so please allow me to comment on this.
Renzi won his first election with questionable corporate contributions. TPM Muckraker summarizes is thusly.
"Another more complicated FEC case involving Renzi, however, has languished for more than three years.
"The FEC completed an audit in that case in October 2004 but didn't release it until after the general election in November 2004, prompting complaints from then-Democratic contender Paul Babbitt.
"At the time, Babbitt also wondered out loud whether Renzi would have won his first race in 2002 without using what the FEC audit concluded were "impermissible corporate funds" of $369,090 to help gain name recognition in a crowded field of Republican primary candidates.
"Renzi said that was personal money he earned after selling his share of a company to Sandlin. Corporate contributions are illegal." (Daily (Ariz.) Courier)
The details that I knew before today were that the FBI had raided his wife's business. I knew that he had resigned from the House Intelligence Committee, and then faced severe pressure to resign from all commikttees, in particular, the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Congressman Renzi's decision to remain on the Natural Resources Committee, which deals directly with this investigation, is completely improper," said Arizona Democratic Party Chairman David Waid in a statement. "Renzi should step down from this committee now, and should have done it last week."
Now we follow the money. Remember the source of funds that were used in the 2002 election. Renzi claimed that they were from selling part of a company to Sandlin. The Hill, today, reported that Renzi is still collecting money from Sandlin and that there is an apparent tit for tat.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the FBI is investigating the Sandlin payment to determine whether Renzi profited from a land deal he may have advanced through his position on the House Natural Resources Committee.
Failure to disclose a large payment properly would be a violation of House ethics rules, but more significantly, prosecutors could use it as evidence that Renzi knew the transaction was illegal and tried to hide it.
Much of the article at The Hill paraphrases the Wall Street Journal, where they dug up a land swap deal that benefited Sandlin, once a business partner of Renzi.
The Journal reported that Renzi pressured officials at Resolution Copper Co., a joint-venture between two mining companies, to buy Sandlin’s plot of land in exchange for help in getting Congress to approve a federal land swap that would give the companies access to 3,000 acres of public lands, surrounding Apache Leap, a cliff formation standing atop what is believed to be one of North America’s biggest copper lodes.
After Resolution refused to buy the land, which it considered overvalued, Renzi helped another group of investors, the Petrified Forest group, to execute a separate federal land swap.
Unlike Resolution, the Petrified Forest group agreed to buy Sandlin’s property. It paid $4 million for the parcel, about $3 million more than Sandlin paid for it in 2003. Renzi dropped his support of Resolution’s proposed federal land swap after Petrified Forest bought Sandlin’s property, the Journal reported.
This is about as dirty as it can get. When I was growing up in Flagstaff, we had good, ethical hard working congressmen of both parties. Stewart Udall (D) served the people of Arizona well, as did John Rhodes (R). That we have come to the place where we spend all of this time digging up the dirt of a piece of work like Renzi is enough to make me sad. Flagstaff is in the middle of beautiful country. The San Francisco Peaks to it's north are revered by modern residents almost as much as by the ancients who lived near there. To have seen that land sullied by shyster real estate deals and crooked politicians maybe says that the days I remember have gone for good. I was not in a position to help Paul when he needed it. Maybe this diary will get someone upset enough to help retire Mr. Renzi and leave the good people of AZ-1 alone.