Back in August, I noted that, of all the politicians that Montana has sent to Capitol Hill, Senator Conrad Burns has taken the greatest value of free travel paid for by corporations that have business before Congress.
Back then, it looked awfully suspicious that Conrad Burns was getting so many free corporate rewards, but any particular quid pro quo was not yet identified. Now, the quid pro quo is established.
As Michael Scanlon, the aide to Tom DeLay who has pled guilty to corruption charges relating to his work with Jack Abramoff, is naming names, it has come to light that Senator Burns took much more than just free corporate vacations. Senator Burns also took cash.
Senator Burns met with the Jack Abramoff lobbying team eight times. Then, Conrad Burns got 12,000 dollars in donations just around the time that Burns cast a vote that was favorable to a client of Abramoff’s operating in the North Mariana Islands. Those donations included a check directly from Jack Abramoff and a check from Jack Abramoff’s client, a garment sweatshop company interested in preventing stronger regulation of industry in the North Mariana Islands, which are a commonwealth territory controlled by the United States. A third check was from Jack Abramoff’s lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig.
Although the North Mariana Islands are a part of the United States, the workers there do not earn the US minimum wage and do not get other standard American worker protections. So, the clothes there can use the tag “Made in the USA”, even though the sweatshops there do not meet American standards. Continuing this dirty arrangement is what Conrad Burns voted for, apparently in exchange for big checks from Abramoff and his clients.
At an earlier time, before Burns started getting payoffs from Abramoff and his clients, Senator Burns voted the opposite way on the very same issue – to end special sweatshop provisions for labor in the North Marianas Islands. Nothing changed between the two votes – except for the financial contributions from Abramoff.
Between 2001 and 2004, Senator Burns has received 150,000 dollars from Abramoff and Abramoff’s clients.
What is Conrad Burns’s defense of accepting the payoffs from Abramoff? He says it’s all part of the democratic process.
