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"The A Team": Who Forgot to Invite Mr. T?
Just who makes up Rep. Don Young's "A Team," the nine transportation lobbyists listed in Young's "Intern Survival Guide" who "can talk to whoever they want" when they call his congressional office?
We've put together a snapshot of each "team" member. Pictures, mysterious silhouettes and more after the jump.
Rick Alcalde is the first person listed on the Survival Guide, and also the most suspiciously entrenched in Young's affairs. He represented Daniel Aronoff, the wealthy Florida developer for whom Young secured the controversial Coconut Road earmark. He is a lobbyist at Potomac Partners in DC.
Jack Ferguson runs his own lobby shop and at one time ran Young's leadership PAC, the Midnight Sun PAC.
Randy DeLay is the brother of former House majority leader Tom DeLay and currently a lobbyist for a number of different clients, mostly in South and West Texas, including Brownsville's Brazos Island Harbor and the Corpus Christi Packery Channel dredging projects, as well as a railway-truck bridge to Mexico and other projects.
Billy Lee Evans is a former congressman from Georgia. He works as a lobbyist for Kessler and Associates, whose founder has reportedly arranged millions of dollars in travel for members of Congress.
Mike Henry is a former legislative assistant for Young and now a lobbyist for Alpine Group.
Jay Dickey is a former Arkansas Congressman and now a lobbyist for JD Consulting (his own consulting firm).
Duncan Smith was a staffer for Young, a member of the Alaska Fisheries Board, and is now a lobbyist for Blank Rome.
C.J. Zane is a former chief of staff for Young and now a lobbyist at Blank Rome, with his buddy Duncan Smith.
Colin Chapman is, like Zane, another former chief of staff for Young turned lobbyist. He worked at Rhoads Group Consulting before opening up shop for himself as Chapman Capital Consulting.
Josh
Zachary
Wow! Jack Ferguson even looks like a Don Young clone!
June 19, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good work. The last frontier indeed, of unapologetic Treasury emptiers who only survive because they aren't as brash as Abramoff. Oh well, it's the last hurrah for these K Street characters if we can get Obama in the White House (which incidentally will still be white in answer to the Repug's amusing button).
June 19, 2008 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dreamer.
Obama will be elected and the Democratic contingent will get larger, but the same guys are still running things in Washington.
A new crop of Democrat-oriented lobbyists are going to move in somewhere off K-Street (is there a J-Street?) set up shop and business will go on as before. K-Street may move or the faces may change, but it will continue in operation.
All the rhetoric about changing the way Washington works is going to crash on the rocks of the absolute necessity that it does work effectively in a timely manner, even if the product is sloppy and subject to numerous areas of corruption. That's the trap Reid and Pelosi have found themselves in, and Obama will have to compromise also if he is not to be Jimmy-Carterized into irrelevancy.
Can Obama create a public vision that government should work quickly, honestly, openly, effectively and without corruption and make it actually mean something regarding how Washington works? I really doubt it. But he is the best chance we've got.
He'll only succeed if the rest of us outside Washington force him to. That means running challenger in the Democratic primaries against those like the Blue Dogs who aren't real progressives. Again, I don't have a lot of hope for that process either. Election over, and the nation will go back to sleep.
June 19, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have to agree with Richardxx. Same stuff, different party. Clinton would have been more of the same for sure.
We just have to keep up the pressure. If we settle for status quo ante Bush we lose. Any elected rep who fails to work and vote for impeachment should go. Same goes for signing on to the ICC and turning the war criminals over to the world for trial. Anything less and we hand the following generations a huge loss.
June 20, 2008 1:53 AM | Reply | Permalink