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April 12, 2006

Norquist to Copyright "K Street Project"

Looks like Grover Norquist is tucking tail and running from something after his unwarranted braggadocio backfired. But he is utilizing a very interesting means in order to save face.

Now that Grover Norquist's "K Street Project" is on the receiving end of a whole lot of bad publicity, he has decided to claim the term is being misapplied to unethical practices having nothing to do with his actual K Street Project. Those practices are the efforts by Republicans to pressure lobbying firms and other groups to hire Republican staffers.

His project is a branch of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), which he heads. He says the project is an innocuous list of job openings for Washington lobbyists and a database of lobbyists’ political ties and federal campaign contributions.

The lists are circulated among high-level conservatives, with critics calling the efforts an improper “whitelisting” and “blacklisting” of potential hires.

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) disagrees with Norquist's attempt to own the term:

“There has to be an understanding that this is an approach rather than an entity. The K Street Project is a title that was an approach that was given during the ’94 takeover. I don’t see how you can marry the two,” Boehner spokesman Kevin Madden said Tuesday of Norquist’s K Street Project and the term’s broader meaning.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agrees the distinction Norquist is attempting to draw is ridiculous:

“Republicans can call it anything they want,” said Pelosi spokeswoman Jennifer Crider. “It doesn’t change the fact that every single Republican is responsible for enabling and benefiting from a K Street Project that puts their cronies ahead of the American people.

“The whole concept makes me laugh,” Crider said of Norquist’s trademark efforts. “The House Republicans don’t want us to be able to use the phrase ‘culture of corruption.’ Norquist doesn’t want us to be able to use the phrase ‘K Street Project.’ Again, it doesn’t change the reality.”

Looks to me as if now that trouble has erupted, Norquist is attempting to distance himself from something for which he used to claim credit, and likely his role never did live up to his own hype:

Republicans with intimate knowledge of how the K Street Project operated under DeLay attempted to distance themselves from Norquist, arguing that he was the one who hyped it from the beginning. In actuality, they said, the project as they knew it was more of a low-key job bank for staffers ready to move off the Hill than a high-pressure attempt to dictate who got top lobbying jobs and who didn’t.

“Did we ask Grover for his list, and did he willingly share it? Yes,” a former GOP leadership staffer said. “But Grover’s list was totally outdated and inaccurate, and if we ever hired anyone from the list … Grover took credit for it inside the [conservative] circle.”

Posted by Becky at April 12, 2006 08:55 AM

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