Chris Jankowski, the new House Republican Political Director

After sacking the widely-loathed Bill Lattanzi as Executive Director of the House Republican Campaign Committee shortly after the November elections, the House GOP needed a new campaign director. While the position is officially vacant, numerous sources tell me that the Speaker has quietly asked his top donor, Chris Jankowski to take the role on a volunteer basis. Yes, the same Chris Jankowski who’s the lobbyist with VIP access to Speaker “Dollar” Bill Howell.

Evidently, “Dollar Bill” knew this would create some stir which is why he kept this decision fairly close to the vest. Oh well.

There’s a major conflict of interest that develops when a lobbyist adopts this sort of role. While it’s not something that raises any legal issues, it creates all sorts of potential political problems.

For example, Jankowski is lobbying for the Legal Aid Justice Center in favor of Kaine’s Pre-K initiative.   This is a measure that most House Republicans oppose. If a candidate came up to him seeking his advice about taking a “no” position and it was clearly in the candidate’s best interest to do so, what would Chris advise? Would he take the side of his lobbying client and encourage the candidate to support the bill? Or would he tow the caucus line and recommend opposing it? Who knows? But this is precisely why no one who is involved in campaign management or consulting should ever be lobbying a political client on any issue. The political client can never know whose interest the lobbyist is putting first.

In his new role as stealth House GOP Campaign Director, Howell has given Jankowski complete control from what I am told. Chris has already started to get to work. Sources say he hired all of the vendors for the recent special in House District 99, that he acted as a general consultant to the campaign, and was involved in strategy and polling calls and other aspects of the campaign. Chris found a top consultant to be paid $2,000 for a website- Capitol Square Communications.  Oh, wait- that's one of his companies.  Well, always easier when you can be in charge of spending in a campaign and hire yourself...

But then again, the Speaker has a habit of trying to slough of the House GOP’s political responsibilities to anyone who will take them. That’s the reason he’s so fond of doing business with the RSLC. They come in with a bucket of money and run the whole operation while keeping the Speaker cursorily involved. They take care of everything from hiring campaign managers (who naturally put the RSLC’s interests ahead of the candidate they’re working for), to securing vendors, to making funding recommendations. In the last cycle they even secured all the caucus political staff, including Lattanzi, the House GOP’s now-former campaign executive director.

Now all of this would go over well with the caucus if the House GOP were winning elections, but they aren’t. Since the RSLC took over the show in all but name in early 2005 when they sent down their now-National Political Director Ward Baker (another person widely loathed by House members and candidates), House Republicans have lost seat after seat with few counteracting gains:

Seats lost
District 21, Mathieson
District 23, Valentine
District 32, Poisson
District 34, Vanderhye
District 41, Marsden
District 51, Nichols
District 67, Caputo
District 83, Bouchard
District 87, Miller
District 99, Pollard

Seats gained
District 6, Crockett-Stark
District 68, Loupassi

That makes a net loss of 8 seats for the House GOP with the RSLC running the show. But the Speaker must really become the minority leader by handing the operation to another person who is tied to the RSLC and who has a total conflict of interest between the two roles. One can almost hear “Dollar Bill” fiddling on the 6th Floor while the House GOP majority is burning.

And one more thing. “Dollar Bill” was the Virginia State Chairman of Mike Huckabee’s Presidential campaign. Howell’s ‘07 campaign manager, Andrew Lamar, was then the Huckabee coordinator for Virginia. Lamar now works for Rhumb Line, which is Jankowski’s lobbying firm.  Well at least his boss didn't change from job to job...

Comments

Dollar Bill... finally an NLS nickname that is clever

[NDM]

Ooooohhhhhhh. There's a conspiiiiiracy. Somebody call the cops. You are an idiot, NLS.

[eileen]

Poisson represents the 32nd district.

[Not Larry Sabato]

You're right, fixed that.

[Hank Bostwick]

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Progressives '08

And what does that have to do with the post at hand?

Here is what I get out of the whole series thus far.

1. There is a lobbyist who showers a ton of money on the Speaker--far more than anyone else.

2. This same lobbyist gets unusual access to the Speaker and this lobbyist can often do things about a bill that no one else can because of this access.

3. The access is now heightened by this lobbyist taking control of the whole campaign operation.

4. That there is a strong appearance of pay-for-access that goes far beyond the already-sketchy business as usual in Virginia concerning money and access.

5. That the Speaker has put his campaign operation in the hands of this lobbyist, even though clear conflicts of interest exist.

6. That a junior legislator used his campaign contributers to give money to the Speaker, for which he was rewarded a seat on the Appropriations Committee and jumped over many more senior members to become a budget conferee. Essentially, he bought his seat for cash.

7. This same legislator, having essentially bought off the Speaker, basically does what he wants without playing with the systems. Examples of this include putting forward legislation that could have personal benefit and sticking an amendment in the budget for the before-mentioned lobbyist for a payment way outside the district and without talking to the members from the area.

Now is this all true? I have no idea. But certainly the appearance is terrible. Even if there were no nefarious plots related to these issues, someone should be smart enough to tell those involved that they need to go about this another way, because the current set-up looks very close to corruption.

[NDM]

Corruption? Are you serious? Nobody is taking the money and spending it on themselves. It's quite far from corruption. It's politics. Politics is money. I'm suuuure the Dems do the same thing.

The Dems do not do the same thing. Their campaign operation is run by campaigners - not lobbyists with conflicting interests.

The Dems also do not have a "Vice-Speaker" who has used his moneyed connections to vault over more senior members and gain positions of power at their expense.

Nor do they have a legislator to put $5 million projects in other legislator's districts without their notice.

I say let Jankowski keep running the show. At this rate, the House will be Democratic before the 2009 elections.

If you do not think that spending that money has no benefit, you simply are not accurate. That money helps Howell remain in the Speakership and he uses the funds to secure votes in his caucus. There have been plenty of examples of corruption that were based on campaign contributions.

As for the Dems, I have no clue what they do or do not do.

I have no issue with a lobbyist backing someone who is for their issue with money. And if the candidate cares about the issue, he may give the lobbyist additional access. But that is not going on here, if what I have read is true.

This guy is giving huge sums of money to help prop up the Speaker. In return he is getting extraordinary privileges. When someone essentially pays to get special treatment, that is a bribe. That simple.

As long as they money goes to a place the legislator cares about, then there is a benefit. I mean it is not like Howell asked for the money to go to the Red Cross or something. It went to a committee he controls and is used to help GOP house candidates win--and when they win with his money, they are beholden to him. He does not have to put the money in his personal bank account to derive a benefit from it or for it to be called corruption.

But again, that only matters if what Ben has been posting are in fact the way things are working.

The bigger question is why the rest of the House GOP caucus does not think this is a problem? Handing over the campaign operation to proven incompetents who lose seat after seat--I think they also ended up running the Senate GOP into a minority too last year--without anyone saying a word is sort of mind-boggling.

Worse, after rightfully dumping Vance Wilkins when he screwed up, they refuse to act on this Speaker's clear ethical pay-for-play issues. Is it that the GOP in the House think this is somehow excusable or have they lost their own moral compass in the years that have passed since the removal of Vance?

Add in the fact that Howell was a major pusher for HB3202--something that was supposed to be a crowning achievement but instead, continues to pay negative dividends--and it is clear he needs to go and needs to go quickly.

If Howell is truly the best person to lead the House GOP caucus, then what does that say about how bad the other members of the caucus must be.

[GOPHokie]

Ben, the 68th is simply a win back from a 2005 loss. The dems have won a net of 9 seats since the beginning of 2005.

[CarolineProgressive]

I got a phone call from what I believe was called "Conquest Research" doing a poll in the 99th district before the election. Is that part of Jankowski's network? At the end the guy said "Paid for by Lee Anne Washington."

Conquest is a Richmond-based political phone banking operation. They do a lot of work for GOP candidates nationally and locally. They are pretty well known so it would make sense.

[CarolineProgressive]

Thanks for the info!

[Not Ben Tribbett]

Ben, why don't you just ask Jankowski out on a date? You obviously have a man crush on the guy.