Sam Graves

The U.S. Senate passed a $17.6 billion jobs bill today by a 68-29 vote, sending it to the White House for the President's signature. "The bill includes a payroll tax break for small businesses and highway funding designed to spur job growth," according to Politico.

Roll Call (subscription required):

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) racked up more than $35,000 in legal bills in the final quarter of 2009, the result of an ethics inquiry that was ultimately dropped, according to his most recent campaign finance report...

The inquiry had focused on Graves’ involvement in inviting a witness with business ties to his spouse to testify at a Small Business Committee hearing. The ethics committee found Graves did not violate House rules.

For more on the Graves inquiry: 

Yesterday, the House voted 225-200 to permanently extend the estate tax at its 2009 level -- 45% for estates valued at more than $3.5 million, or $7 million for a couple.  As part of the 2001 Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% of taxpayers, the estate tax gradually decreased and was set to disappear for all of 2010, only to come back in 2011 at a 55% rate for estates worth more than $1 million. Media Matters:

Rep. Earl Pomeroy's (D-ND) H.R. 4154, the Permanent Estate Tax Relief for Families, Farmers, and Small Businesses Act of 2009, which passed the House today, will fix the problem by making the estate tax permanent at 45% and raising the exemption to $3.5 million.  According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, H.R. 4154 is actually a $233.6 billion tax cut.  Republicans, who want to entirely abolish the estate tax, must choose between supporting a Democratic tax cut or having rates rise in 2011. 

Roll Call:

The Office of Congressional Ethics released a seven-page missive Tuesday refuting criticisms of its investigative process made by the House ethics committee in late October, and marking the public airing of tensions in the chamber’s two-tiered ethics process.

The Nov. 20 memorandum addresses the House ethics committee’s critique of an OCE investigation of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), which the committee declared “fundamentally flawed” in an Oct. 29 report dismissing the inquiry. The memo also reiterates the OCE’s status as a quasi-independent House office, operating without oversight from the ethics committee...

The OCE, which had earlier refuted those allegations, reiterated its defense in Friday’s memorandum, and disputed charges that it “ignored” evidence provided by Graves.

Though the the House ethics committee cleared Rep. Sam Graves last month of wrongdoing connected to an appearance by a friend last spring, the handling of Graves' matter has remained in the news.  The House ethics committee and the new semiautonomous Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) have been fighting about the handling of his case, and whether or not Graves' "appearance of a conflict of interest" was actually problematic.

Yesterday, The Hill printed an opinion piece from Meredith McGehee of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, in which McGehee argues that the Congressional ethics process is not working as well as some would hope.

Exhibit A is the committee’s handling of its investigation of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) for failing to reveal his ties to a witness he arranged to have testify before a committee Graves sits on. The Graves matter brings to light three serious concerns about a process that cannot be described as “fixed.”

Speaking last night about why he thinks term limits are a good idea, former Matt Blunt Chief of Staff/Congressional Candidate/MO GOP Chairman Emeritus/Serial Tax Waster Ed Martin said he supports limiting Members of U.S. House to four two-year terms, and would sponsor a Constitutional amendment in Congress to make that happen. In fact, he said it would be "one the first things" he'd file.

Hotflash from Show Me Progress was there and has the video:

Rep. Sam Graves is featured in this new web ad from the DNC, and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson also has a cameo behind the shoulder of some dude from Kentucky.

Fox News whips up the 9/12 crowd

Reps. Todd Akin, Sam Graves and Blaine Luetkemeyer have signed on to a Congressional resolution "expressing gratitude and appreciation to the individuals and families who participated in the Taxpayer March on Washington on September 12, 2009."

The resolution is harmless enough, and gives a chance for the three to build some cred with the tea partiers (who get no love from Jo Ann Emerson or Roy Blunt), but includes some obviously inflated estimates of how many people were actually at the 9/12 event. 

Two weeks ago, it was revealed that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), a relatively new body created to strengthen ethics investigations in Washington, had found "substantial reason to believe" that Rep. Sam Graves was involved in a "substantive violation" of House rules.  The exact nature of the potential ethics violation was not specified, but the inquiry is believed to pertain to Graves' inviting of his friend Brooks Hurst to testify before a Congressional hearing on renewable fuels without mentioning that his wife and Hurst are investors together in renewable fuels plants in Missouri.

NPR has a really impressive analysis and interactive map on their website today breaking down the uninsured population in each Congressional district. As has been noted elsewhere, some of the strongest health care obstruction efforts are coming from leaders who represent huge uninsured populations. NPR:

Of the 100 congressional districts with the highest percentage rates of uninsured people, 53 are represented either by Republican lawmakers who are fighting the overhaul, or by conservative Blue Dog Democrats who have slowed down and diluted the overhaul proposals.

Roll Call and The Washington Post reported late this afternoon that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) and House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (SOOC, or House ethics panel) have distinctly different understandings of the Sam Graves ethics inquiry made public early today.

OCE Chairman David Skaggs and Co-Chairman Porter Goss (George W. Bush's Director of Central Intelligence) wrote today that the SOOC "mischaracterized" the OCE's referral of "the matter involving Representative Sam Graves."

The U.S. House's Committee on Standards of Official Conduct revealed today that it has been investigating potential ethics violations by Rep. Sam Graves. Roll Call:

Although the committee did not detail what allegations it is investigating with regard to Graves, the Missouri lawmaker issued a statement Wednesday referring to allegations about testimony before the Small Business Committee.

In March, Roll Call reported that the Congressman invited his friend and neighbor Brooks Hurst to testify before a Congressional hearing on renewable fuels, without mentioning that his wife and Hurst are investors together in renewable fuels plants in Missouri...

Read More »

This afternoon, the U.S. House ratified a "resolution of disapproval" concerning Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) "You Lie!" outburst by a 240-179 vote.  It was a mostly party-line vote -- Rep. Jo Ann Emerson was one of just seven Republicans to vote yes.

All things considered, it was was a pretty weak reprimand from the House, as members of both parties agreed that Wilson's behavior violated House rules.

But Yael T. Abouhalkah says it's true:

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves knows his constituents well: They want to hear him criticize federal government, oppose taxes and generally act like the ultra-conservative Missouri Republican he has been for years.

On Wednesday, Graves fulfilled his mission, telling a town hall one of the reasons he opposed a public option health insurance plan: "I have yet to see a progtram that the government runs well."

Oh, is that right, Mr. Graves?

Not exactly.

Read More »

Blaine Luetkemeyer, Roy Blunt and Sam Graves will be talking cap and trade in Sedalia tomorrow. All of them loathe the climate change legislation in Congress, of course. 

• Blunt's a big fan of oil and gas interests, incorrectly believes "there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth," and has a documented record of regurgitating demonstrably false information about the cap and trade legislation.
• Luetkemeyer has passed on more bogus information about the cap-and-trade legislation than any of us can count. He also is so terribly afraid of Nobel Prize-winning climate science that he wants to revoke its funding (even though he admits he's never read the offending research).
  
Read More »