Blunt Assessment: "Dubious efforts to use his position to benefit members of his family"

The Missouri GOP's sudden interest in hypothetical conflicts of interest for Members of Congress is surprising, given their complete silence about actual, well-documented, widely-condemned conflicts of interest from Rep. Roy Blunt (R-K Street). Details of Blunt's covert efforts to benefit his current wife's company (Philip Morris/Altria) and clients of his son, Andy, (United Parcel Service and FedEx Corp.) could fill volumes (and have) -- to say nothing of the patronage schemes overseen by son Matt as governor.

The hypocrisy is quite hard to comprehend when one considers the following:

Family Benefits

The network of political committees with ties to Roy Blunt is complex and elaborate. His campaign committee has raised $8.58 million since 1996. His leadership committee, the Rely on Your Beliefs Fund (ROYB Fund), has raised $1.68 million since 2000. A separate ROYB 527 Committee collected $1.67 million from 2000 through 2002.

Over the years, seven companies with business before Congress stand out as the most reliable Blunt supporters: Altria, SBC Communications, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern, Verizon, United Parcel Service and BellSouth have together given more than $1.2 million to political committees tied to Blunt. Altria is the largest contributor, giving more than $270,000. Blunt, a vocal social conservative, divorced Roseann Blunt, his first wife, to marry Altria lobbyist Abigail Perlman in October 2003.

Blunt's lobbyist son Andrew includes among his clients Altria-owned Kraft Foods, Philip Morris, and 36 percent Altria-owned Miller Brewing, along with SBC Missouri, Burlington Northern and UPS. Hartley has among his clients Verizon (paying $320,000 a year), SBC ($120,000) and BellSouth ($120,000).

Matt Blunt, the governor, has awarded one of the few remaining patronage plums in the state -- franchises to collect fees for driver's license renewals, tax payments for new cars and processing motor vehicle titles and registrations that can provide recipients with as much as $1 million over four years -- to the wife of U.S. Attorney Todd P. Graves, Tracy Graves, and to Graves's brother-in-law, Todd Bartles. The U.S. attorney's office has jurisdiction over Blunt's congressional district and the state capitol.

I think it's safe to assume that we can all look forward to more screeds from the MOGOP about potential conflicts of interest that may or may not happen in two years (at which point such conflicts would disappear with a simple recusal), and continued silence about the unapologetic unethical behavior of the elder Blunt.