Michigan Representative Parties With The People He Regulates. Does Anyone Smell A Rat?

Rep. Huizenga Vacations At Disney With Bankers He Regulates As They Benefit From His #CRomnibus Vote

By Brandon Hall 

(Email him at WestMiPolitics@Gmail.com)

  
Congressman Huizenga! You've just finished an EXHAUSTIVE meeting of the House Financial Services Committee...What are you going to do?

"I'm going to Disneyland!"

Ok. Rep. Huizenga never actually said that. He did go to Disneyland for a political fundraiser though-an audacious trip that raises disturbing questions about the control special interests and big banks have over our political system.

The situation also highlights some interesting facets behind the scenes of the Huizenga Empire.

Huizenga is on the House Financial Services Committee, which, according to his website, has jurisdiction over "monetary policy, international finance, international monetary organizations, and efforts to combat terrorist financing. Agencies under oversight by the Committee include: the Federal Reserve, Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the Export-Import Bank."

Also:

ABOUT THE COMMITTEE AND HUIZENGA’S SUBCOMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS: 

As Vice Chair, Congressman Huizenga will assist Subcommittee Chairman John Campbell (CA-45) in running committee hearings and essential committee operations.

The Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade has jurisdiction over legislation pertaining to:

• Economic growth and stabilization;
• Domestic monetary policy, including the effect of such policy and other financial actions on interest rates, the allocation of credit, and the structure and functioning of domestic financial institutions;
• Coins, coinage, currency, and medals, including commemorative coins and medals, proof and mint sets and other special coins, and counterfeiting; 
• International trade;
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF);
• International investment policies, both as they relate to United States investments for trade purposes by citizens of the United States and investments made by all foreign entities in the United States.

The Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises. This subcommittee will have jurisdiction over issues surrounding:

• Securities, exchanges, and finance; 
• Capital markets activities, including business capital formation and venture capital; 
• Activities involving futures, forwards, options, and other types of derivative instruments; 
• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); 
• Secondary market organizations for home mortgages, including the Federal National Mortgage Association, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, and the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation; 
• The Federal Housing Finance Agency; and 
• Federal Home Loan Banks.

That being said, in March of this year, Huizenga, along with fellow House member Tom Price, held a three day fundraising event at Disney in Orlando, Florida.

The weekend event combined baseball's spring training with the allure of Disney-all while giving defacto lobbyists an amazingly candid opportunity to schmooze with Huizenga and Price.

It was hosted by "Americans For Spring Training," a joint-fundraising committee benefiting Huizenga and Price created exclusively for the event-as required by law.

Records indicate Capital One officials attended the Disney Vacation, as well as people from Primerica, which according to Google "Primerica, Inc. is a distributor of financial services and sells products through representatives in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam."

Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. was also represented at Disney. They are "an American worldwide professional services, risk management, and insurance brokerage firm with headquarters in New York."

PAC's could also contribute directly to Huizenga's Congressional Campaign, where a source with deep knowledge says the fundraiser took in nearly $30,000. 

We are trying to confirm of donations like that of Citigroup made two and a half weeks after the event are part of that $30,000-or whatever the exact amount is.

Huizenga also held a similar event at Universal Studios in 2012. That weekend featured a "Harry Potter breakfast." (I want to go to the Harry Potter breakfast!)

Huizenga's Congressional campaign is loaded with contributions from big banks, financial institutions, and their employees. According to OpenSecrets.Com, 97% of his donors are PAC's or high-end donors.

MapLight.Com has a fantastic link showing the relation between Huizenga's votes and the special interests who wanted him to vote that way. Check it out.

Prominent Huizenga donors include Huntington Bank, Citigroup, Capital One, and JP Morgan Chase, among many, many others in the fields he regulates.

Huizenga even advertises on a flyer for his "Upper Hand PAC" that he is a member of the House Financial Services Committee-as if these folks are going to forget that fact! Why do you think they're there!

Given the extreme amount of influence the banking industry exerts over Huizenga, it's not difficult to see why he voted for the "CRomnibus" last week.

Elizabeth Warren rightfully points out (did I just say that?!) that the bill is a gift to the banks, allowing them to again be eligible for taxpayer funded bailouts.

The New York Times reports the bailout provision was actually written by a Citigroup lobbyist!

Sarah Palin said that Representatives like Huizenga who voted for the bill "flipped Americans the bird" and should face a primary "backlash."

Chris VanHollen, a Democrat whom Huizenga serves in the "Dutch Caucus" with, blastedthe bill, saying that "“It is unacceptable to threaten a government shutdown in order to do the bidding of the biggest banks and put taxpayers on the hook again for their gambling losses."

Will Adams, spokesman for Rep. Justin Amash, a Grand Rapids Republican, told MLive that:

"Justin opposed the bill because it contains billions of dollars of special interest giveaways...This is the game that they play; negotiators wait to the very last minute ... and there's less than 48 hours to consider (the bill)," he said. "That's no way to fund the federal government, no way to spend a trillion dollars of American taxpayer money." 

Rep. Amash

Huizenga, however, defended his vote in a statement:

"Tonight, Congressman Huizenga (MI-02) released the following statement after voting to keep the government open, slash the IRS Budget, and enact conservative reforms. 
“This bipartisan agreement remains consistent with the budget negotiated by Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray. Additionally, this legislation spends less than the most conservative budget put forward by Republicans when we regained the House majority in 2011. 
 
“I am also pleased to see the House win the debate to hold the IRS accountable for targeting Americans for their political beliefs. While the IRS Budget reduction is not as much as the $788 million cut I authored and the House adopted during the appropriations process, this $346 million cut sends a message to bureaucrats in Washington that they are on notice.”

Jim Barry

Huizenga's half brother and campaign adviser Jim Barry, defending contributions from special interests, told MLive's Zane McMillin in 2013 that "Bill has a pro-growth, pro-job policy position, and those are interests that support that point of view and want to support candidates that have that viewpoint."

He also defended Huizenga in 2014, saying ""These are all business that have wide interests, that have a lot of reasons to support Bill," Barry said. "I don't see that as highly unusual. ... Everyone has a right to support candidates."

Barry himself benefits from the contributions.

In the 2-11/2012 cycle, Barry was paid $14,700 by the campaign. In the 2014/2014 cycle, Barry was paid $84,000. $29,000 was paid to him directly, $55,000 was funneled through his Holland based LLC, "JB America." It lists the same address as Barry's here. And HERE.

WMP has also learned that Barry will be paid by both the Ottawa County GOP and the Michigan Republican Party for campaign work performed while Interim Ottawa County GOP Executive Director this fall...

Huizenga District Director Greg VanWoerkom is also reaping the benefits of the big money being thrown at Huizenga.

VanWoerkom, left, with Huizenga-via (Andraya Croft | MLive)

In addition to his nearly $74,000/year Congressional salary, VanWoerkom has also been receiving compensation through the Huizenga for Congress campaign. Huizenga has paid VanWorkom nearly $100,000 via "Lakeshore Strategies," VanWoerkom's Norton Shores based LLC. $30,800 was paid in Huizenga's first term, $68,400 thus far in his second term.

VanWoerkom has also claimed thousands of dollars in taxpayer funded reimbursements on top of his yearly salary and substantial Huizenga for Congress compensation.

Huizenga's own campaign finances have been the subject of controversy.

According to reports filed with the United States House of Representatives Ethics Committee, Huizenga failed to provide adequate information on more than one occasion.

In May of 2014, Huizenga wrote a letter to the Ethics Committee apologizing for his failure to comply with 2012 campaign finance requirements.

In July of 2012, Huizenga was forced to give the Ethics Committee further information after failing to do so as required.

It's unclear if Huizenga was the subject of a complaint or inquiry for an ethics violation.

Also of note, Huizenga transferred all of his assets and investments to his wife and young children after 2012. Perhaps there is a tax reason? Surely it didn't happen without cause...

It's amazing that all of Team Huizenga's shenanigans seem legal, yet you and I can't *legally* bet on a Lions game!

I am going to need the Lions to win quite a few games if I ever hope to make it to the next "Harry Potter Breakfast" with Bill....

__________________________________________________________________________

Brandon Hall is a lifelong political nerd from Grand Haven, and is the Managing Editor of West Michigan Politics.

Email him at WestMiPolitics@Gmail.com

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Photo By Darlene Dowling Thompson

If Republicans Lose Or Barely Maintain The House, You Can Expect Boehner To Lose His Leadership Role

House Conservatives Want to Oust Boehner

Friday, 11 Apr 2014 06:30 AM

By Cathy Burke

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Conservative lawmakers are plotting to dump House Speaker John Boehner as soon as November, the National Journal reported Thursday.

The National Journal said 40 to 50 House conservatives are behind a scheme to infiltrate the GOP leadership in 2015, and pushing the Ohio Republican aside would be the first step.

The conservative disapproval with Boehner has been widely reported.

The rebels' strategies include backing a single conservative leadership candidate, cutting a deal with Majority Leader Eric Cantor that would swap support with him for speaker in return for his bringing aboard "a conservative lieutenant," or showing Boehner at the post-November elections' meeting of the incoming GOP conference that he doesn't have the votes for re-election in January, the National Journal reported.

One Republican told the publication the "nucleus" of the rebellion is inside the House Liberty Caucus, which includes Justin Amash of Michigan, Raul Labrador of Idaho, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who all objected to Boehner's re-election as speaker in January 2013.

Amash, chairman of the Liberty Caucus, has warned then there would be a "larger rebellion" if Boehner's leadership team didn't bring conservatives on board.

"There are no big ideas coming out of the conference. Our leadership expects to coast through this election by banking on everyone's hatred for Obamacare," said one Republican lawmaker organizing the rebellion the National Journal didn't identify. "There's nothing big being done. We're reshuffling chairs on the Titanic."

Boehner isn't the only target of the conservatives' ire, the National Journal reported.

Cantor has come under fire from conservatives recently because of a voice vote maneuver that helped pass an Obamacare "doctor fix" bill.

"I'm getting used to being deceived by the Obama administration, but when my own leadership does it, it's just not acceptable," Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona said last week, after Cantor met with a group of angry Republican Study Committee members.

"It's an issue of trust. If you want to have a majority that is governing, and a majority that is following the leader, the rest of us need to be in a position where we trust our leadership," Labrador has said, the National Journal reported.

"When you have politicians actually playing tricks on their own party, and their own members of Congress, I think that erodes the trust the American people have in the rest of us."

For his part, Boehner isn't going anywhere.

"Speaker Boehner is focused on the American people's top priority: helping our economy create more private sector jobs," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told the National Journal. "He has also said—publicly and privately—that he plans to be speaker again in the next Congress."

The attempted overthrow of Boehner last year failed in part because conservatives didn't have an alternative candidate for Republicans to rally around, the National Journal noted.

"Somebody has to step forward," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, one of 12 Republicans who refused to back Boehner's re-election in 2013. "This is not something where after the election you can step forward. There's going to be months and months of [planning] needed."

Related Stories:

• Boehner Lacks GOP Support for Immigration Reform
• Boehner Slams Conservative Groups for Attacking Budget

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Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Boehner-Cantor-National-Journal-House/2014/04/11/id/564981#ixzz2ybmOCoAa
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

GOP Is Imploding. They Have NO ONE To Blame But Themselves!

McCain Censure the Latest Sign of GOP Fratricide

 

By Eric Pianin2 hours ago

If there were any doubts that Republicans are in the throes of ideological fratricide that could threaten their prospects for success this fall, they were dispelled over the weekend in Arizona.

In a move both bizarre and ill-timed, Arizona Republican Party members voted to censure Sen. John McCain – a highly-decorated Vietnam War hero, maverick conservative and 2008 Republican presidential nominee – for being too liberal for their taste.

“Only in times of great crisis or betrayal is it necessary to publicly censure our leaders,” stated the resolution which was approved by acclamation. “Today we are faced with both. For too long we have waited, hoping Senator McCain would return to our Party’s values on his own. That has not happened.”

McCain’s offenses cited in the resolution included working on comprehensive immigration reform, or “amnesty,” and not going along with last year’s conservative strategy to “defund” President Obama’s signature health-care law, according to a report in The Arizona Republic.

The resolution reads like a federal indictment on espionage charges, condemning McCain “for his continued disservice to our state and nation,” and said state Republican leaders “will no longer support, campaign for or endorse John McCain as our U.S. Senator.”

McCain’s office declined to comment on the resolution over the weekend, but former three-term Republican Sen. Jon Kyl told the newspaper that the move – while not exactly surprising given growing disenchantment with McCain – was “wacky.”

“I’ve gone to dozens of these meetings and every now and then some wacky resolution gets passed,” Kyl said. “But most people realize it does not represent the majority of the vast numbers of Republicans.” Kyl added that McCain’s voting record was “very conservative.”

Indeed, McCain was rated 91 percent by the American Conservative Union on his positions last year and holds a lifetime positive rating of 87 percent. McCain was once touted as a “maverick” independent who voted close to the ideological middle of the Senate.

After losing to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, McCain made such a dramatic shift to the right that by 2010 he was tied with Tea Party favorite Jim DeMint of South Carolina for the title of the Senate’s most conservative member, according to a National Journal analysis.

McCain’s sins, in the eyes of state party Republicans in Arizona, include his support of the Senate-passed bipartisan immigration reform bill that would provide 11 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship. State Republican officials are adamantly opposed to any bill that smacks of “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and their children.

Another sin committed by the often-free-wheeling, combative McCain was clashing with rising conservative Senate stars, including Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, over national security and budget policy as well as Obamacare.

Last March, McCain told the media that Cruz, Paul and Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) were “wacko birds” for their outspoken brand of politicking on the Hill. McCain also criticized Paul for his nearly 13-hour filibuster that pressured the Obama administration to clarify its position on the use of domestic drones, calling it a “disservice to a lot of Americans.”

McCain later apologized for the “wacko birds” comment, but not before Paul in a speech to conservatives dismissed McCain as part of the old guard of the GOP that “has grown stale and moss covered.”

His final misdeed was to side with Democrats last fall in deriding GOP efforts to block passage of a budget and threaten a government shutdown to force cuts in spending for the Affordable Care Act. In a Sept. 25 floor speech that drew Democratic praise and GOP hostility, McCain said that while he had vigorously opposed passage of Obamacare, “elections have consequences.”

“I'd remind my colleagues that in the 2012 election, Obamacare . . . was a major issue in the campaign,” he said. “I campaigned all over America for two months everywhere I could, and in every single campaign rally I said, ‘And we have to repeal and replace Obamacare.’ Well, the people spoke. They spoke, much to my dismay, but they spoke, and they re-elected the president of the United States.”

Many in the Arizona Republican Party have been apoplectic about these offenses and couldn’t wait to formally convey their displeasure – although McCain’s current term isn’t up until 2016, when he turns 80. He announced in October that he was considering running for a sixth term.

Timothy Schwartz, who authored the censure, said McCain “has abandoned us” and called on party leaders to hold him accountable. McCain always works with Democrats but not with Republicans,” Schwartz said, speaking in support of the censure.

Such interparty tensions could have troubling consequences for Republicans this year in their bid to retain control of the House and recapture a majority in the Senate. Seven of 12 Republican senators up for reelection – including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – are facing primary challenges from Tea Party candidates.

For now, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi appears to be the most endangered GOP incumbent. The politically potent Club for Growth has endorsed his primary challenger, state senator Chris McDaniel. The other Republicans facing primary challenges appear to be in pretty good shape.

Yet just a few Republican primary upsets – as we saw, for example, in Indiana and Missouri in 2012 – could result in a weaker general election field and costly losses for the GOP.

Cruz Speaking Like A Patriot

Cruz To RINO McCain: I Don’t Trust You, And I Don’t Trust Democrats

May 24, 2013 by Ben Bullard 

UPI FILE

Senator Ted Cruz has been cultivating a reputation for standing on principle, even if it means alienating the party establishment.

On April 26, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told a group of Tea Party supporters in his home State that his Republican colleagues in the Senate had acted like “a bunch of squishes” in cutting gun-control deals with aggressive Democrats ahead of the infamously ill-fated Manchin-Toomey gun control act.

Cruz, along with other libertarian-minded Congressmen like Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.), have been cultivating a reputation for standing on principle, even if it means alienating the party establishment.

But on Wednesday, Cruz took that fight away from friendly audiences and went straight to the Senate floor, sparring with Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) over what’s wrong with conservatives who strike liberally diluted devils’ bargains.

The topic was the Senate’s attempt to pass a budget — its first in four years. Led by McCain, moderate Republicans have been urging holdouts to go along with their Democratic colleagues and set up a budget conference committee to iron out differences between the Senate version of the budget and the one already passed by the House of Representatives.

Cruz and Paul, along with conservatives Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are fine with that approach — if the conference committee can guarantee the budget won’t come back with a provision that raises the Federal debt ceiling, which Democrats, of course, favor.

“If we go to conference without the debt ceiling being taken off the plate, it is a 100 percent certainty that the debt ceiling will be raised,” said Cruz.

McCain knows this. Why else would he, essentially, ask Cruz and his cohort of real conservatives to just take the whole thing on faith? Here’s McCain’s attempt at shaming Cruz into gullibility from the Senate floor:

Let’s put some confidence in — if not in the conferees appointed here, but in the conferees who will be appointed on the other side of the Capitol, who are of our party, who are fiscal conservatives just like we are. Instead of blocking, what I assure my colleagues — all three of them here, that is a minority of the minority of Republicans in the United States Senate — that [the majority] wants to move forward with a budget, which we spent so many hours and so much effort in achieving.

McCain followed that up Wednesday by pretending to be baffled at the idea that principle can trump compromise. “Basically, here, what we’re saying on this side of the aisle is, we don’t trust our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol, who are in the majority,” he said.

Damn straight, said Cruz, whose Jiu-Jitsu retort from the Senate floor used McCain’s words to drive home his own point about the corruption and moral inertia plaguing the leadership of both parties:

The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear: I don’t trust the Republicans. And I don’t trust the Democrats. And I think a whole lot of Americans, likewise, don’t trust the Republicans and the Democrats because it is leadership in both parties that has gotten us into this mess.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons we got into this mess is because a lot of Republicans were complicit in this spending spree. And that’s why so many Americans are disgusted with both sides of this house. Because we need leaders on both sides…to roll up our sleeves, to compromise, to work together and fix the problem; fix the enormous fiscal and economic problems. Stop bankrupting our country.

And every Republican who stands against holding the line here is really saying, ‘Let’s give the Democrats a blank check to borrow any money they want with no reforms, no leadership to fix the problem.’”

McCain stopped short of calling Cruz a “wacko bird,” but he did describe the conservatives’ skepticism as “bizarre,” and he preened over his conservative pedigree — all while Senate Democrats reveled in the spectacle of Republicans feuding.

“I’ll match my record against anybody’s on debt and the deficit, and that includes the Senator from Florida [Rubio],” said McCain.