Bennie Thompson

Party Favors: House Staffers' Event Planning Biz Specializes In Bashes For Top Dem Rep

Justin Elliott | December 11, 2009, 12:13PM

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS)

A party planning side business run by three current and former congressional staffers raked in over $20,000 last year from lobbyists holding events to honor Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) -- whose own communications director is co-founder of the firm.

The apparent arrangement between Thompson and the business, Chic Productions, at once allows private interests to get closer to the congressman's office and gives the staffers a way to dip a straw into the river of outside money flowing through Capitol Hill.

Chic Productions offers "high style events with simple elegance" and advertises its previous work executing "congressional events and fundraising parties." One of Chic's principals was quoted in 2007 saying congressional events make up roughly 90 percent of the firm's business.

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Bennie Thompson

Ethics Panel Probing Homeland Security Committee's Ties To Lobbyists

Zachary Roth | December 7, 2009, 9:38AM

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS)

Did Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the chair of the Homeland Security committee, hold hearings on identity theft with the goal of scaring credit-card companies into making political donations? That charge is at the heart of a set of issues being investigated by the House Ethics committee, reports the Washington Post.

Last March, Thompson held hearings on whether credit-card companies should be forced to bolster security in order to protect customers from identity theft -- something the companies oppose.

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