GOP lawmaker targets lobbying firm

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is taking a second crack at forcing ethics action on the link between campaign contributions and earmarks, but this time a lobbying firm recently raided by the FBI is the target.

Flake, a vigilant anti-earmark crusader, on Tuesday offered a privileged resolution that would launch an ethics committee investigation into the relationship between earmark requests made on behalf of clients of PMA Group and campaign contributions the firm made to its clients. The ethics panel would be required to report its findings to the House within two months. The House has two days to take up the resolution.

{mosads}The FBI recently raided the offices of PMA Group and the firm since has disbanded. Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, and Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), another member of the spending panel, are the top beneficiaries of campaign cash from PMA Group and its clients. Recent media reports have said some of those contributions were from fraudulent donors.

“This is no small matter,” Flake said on the House floor. “The PMA Group had revenues of $18 million last year alone, made contributions to more than 100 members of this body, and secured some $300 million in earmarks for its clients in one bill alone: the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill.”

The resolution is a narrower version of one Flake offered last week, which was killed when Democrats moved to table it and voted to do so by a wide margin. Still, 17 Democrats and most Republicans voted with Flake to move forward to debate the resolution, the most support any Flake effort at stripping earmarks has garnered to date.

The original privileged resolution would have launched an ethics committee review of the link between earmarks and campaign contributions. A spokesman for Flake said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told his boss that language was overly broad, so he narrowed it to focus on PMA Group.

The move follows an amendment Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) offered Tuesday afternoon that would strip 13 earmarks for PMA clients worth $26 million from the $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill. Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) opposes such a move.  The Senate will likely vote on the Coburn amendment Wednesday afternoon.