The K Street Project Lives

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/02/k-street-project-lives/

The K Street Project was the legislation-for-money peddling scheme that helped bring down former Majority Leader Tom DeLay and exposed the corrupt culture in which Jack Abramoff’s criminal activity was encouraged and rewarded. DeLay once explained the partisan nature of the Project as “punishing your enemies and rewarding your friends.”

When Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) came into power, he pledged to eliminate the K Street project. Conservatives claimed the pay-to-play process had been “consigned to the dustbin of history.” But in fact, the K Street Project continues to thrive.

Roll Call recently reported that “Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist has tapped Sarah Smith, a former College Republican team leader and field representative for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, to be the first manager of the project, which is run out of the office of Norquist’s Washington-based group, Americans for Tax Reform.” A blurb in the The Star Democrat — a small Maryland paper — reveals just how aggressively and covertly Norquist and company continue to push the K Street Project.

Tonight, Norquist’s ally Sarah Smith will be attending a gathering of the Chesapeake Republican Women to solicit their support for the Project: