There's got to be all kinds of slime here
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050512/two_amigos_and_their_gulag_archipelago.php In 1992, San Francisco Congressman George Miller began investigating working conditions on the islands. In the same year, the U.S. Department of Labor fined five garment factories $9 million in back wages for 1,200 workers who had been locked in worksites and barracks and required to work 84-hour weeks with no overtime. It was the largest fine the department ever levied. In 1995, the Philippines, not exactly a country with a reputation for defending workers’ rights, began denying visas to Philippine citizens bound for labor camps in the Commonwealth. By mid-1997, the Clinton administration was moving to impose federal labor standards on the commonwealth. The president himself wrote to the governor, warning that “certain labor practices in the islands are inconsistent with our country’s values.”
By then the government of commonwealth had retained Abramoff—at the time one of the hottest lawyer/lobbyists on K Street. That connected the government to the good offices of then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay.
DeLay delivered.
When Governor Froilan Tenorio visited Washington in 1997, DeLay stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and told the story of the Marianas Miracle:
“Governor Tenorio did not come to Washington looking for taxpayer benefits, welfare or handouts. He came to promote market reforms. During his administration, Governor Tenorio has actively pursued and courted businesses around the globe to open shop on the CMI. Like President Reagan in the 1980s, Tenorio has kept taxes low. Low tax rates have actually increased productivity, which in turn increased revenue for the government of the CNMI…The economic changes that have taken place in the CNMI have been nothing short of miraculous.”
He didn’t mention working conditions or the $9 million fine.
Abramoff also delivered. He paid for part of the trip for Tom and Christine DeLay, and their daughter Danni Ferro, to spend Christmas 1997 and New Years' Eve at the Saipan Hyatt. They were accompanied by 14 staffers, including Scanlon, who would later help Abramoff elect his candidate for speaker of the house in the Commonwealth. Airfare alone was $75,778. But it was chump change. Abramoff and his law firm billed the Marianas $9 million. He even booked some work for a friend, right-wing Rabbi David Lapin, who pocketed $1.2 million for an eight-day ethics course he taught in the Marianas. The high cost must have had something to do with the difficulty of imposing ethical standards on such a wild place.
DeLay even took a tour of the garment factories. When a reporter asked him about sweatshop conditions DeLay said the factories were air-conditioned. “I didn’t see anybody sweating.”
At a New Year’s Eve banquet at the Hyatt, DeLay toasted “one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, D.C.” He then warned the factory owners and elected officials about the Clinton administration.
“You are up against the forces of big labor and the radical left. Dick Armey and I made a promise to defend the islands’ present system. Stand firm. Resist evil. Remember that all truth and blessings emanate from our Creator. God bless you and the people of the Northern Marianas.”
God blessed them. Wages in the Marianas remained $3.05 an hour. Abramoff would return the compliment DeLay paid him at the New Year’s eve party, later telling a group of cheering Young Republicans that, “Tom DeLay is who we all want to be when we grow up.”
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