Old but Relevant Blunt Article

GOP Whip Quietly Tried to Aid Big Donor
Provision Was Meant To Help Philip Morris
Wednesday, June 11, 2003; Page A01

Only hours after Rep. Roy Blunt was named to the House's third-highest leadership job in November, he surprised his fellow top Republicans by trying to quietly insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris USA into the 475-page bill creating a Department of Homeland Security, according to several people familiar with the effort.

The new majority whip, who has close personal and political ties to the company, instructed congressional aides to add the tobacco provision to the bill -- then within hours of a final House vote --even though no one else in leadership supported it or knew he was
trying to squeeze it in.

Once alerted to the provision, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, quickly had it pulled out, said a senior GOP leader who requested anonymity. Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) also opposed what Blunt (Mo.) was trying to do, the member said, and "worked against it" when he learned of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A41839-2003Jun10¬Found=true

efforts to push through elimination of the estate tax during the height of the Katrina disaster. Totally without any political sensitivity--I cannot imagine how this individual is able to pass himself off as serving the people (if indeed he does)--when his agenda seems to be filled with money, money, money.

his wife works for the company, and his son is a tobacco lobbyist.