Thursday, July 22, 2010
Charlie Crist, Mario Rubio, Kendrick Meek
Sunshine is aplenty in Florida, where candidates for Congress are getting a little light shone on them as part of CREW’s list of Crooked Candidates 2010. The watchdog group (aka Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) decided to scour the land for news and information that would reveal those running for federal offices who have engaged in criminal or unethical conduct.
Of CREW’s top 11 selections so far this year, four are from Florida and three are running for the same office. Governor Charlie Crist, who is running for U.S. Senate as an independent, and his opponents, Democrat Kendrick Meek and Republican Marco Rubio all made the list, as did Republican Allen West who’s seeking a seat in the U.S. House.
Charlie Crist’s hand-picked leader of the Florida Republican Party, Jim Greer, has been charged with six counts of grand theft, fraud and money laundering. While he was Florida’s attorney general, Crist was accused of failing to investigate companies and individuals with whom he had financial ties. Kendrick Meek has been financially linked to developer Dennis Stackhouse, who is awaiting trial for grand theft and organizing a scheme to defraud. Mario Rubio has been implicated in a federal investigation into the use of Florida Republican Party credit cards for personal expenses, and has been accused of using his position in the state House of Representatives to help campaign donors.
While serving as an Army battalion commander in Iraq, Allen West was found guilty of three counts of aggravated assault of an Iraqi citizen during an interrogation in which West shoved the man’s head into a barrel filled with sand and then fired at least one gunshot into the barrel.
The remaining “crooked candidates” who made the list are:
- Roy Blunt (R-Missouri), U.S. Senate; both his wife and son were lobbyists for Philip Morris (Altria), which has contributed heavily to Blunt’s campaigns
- Jeff Denham (R-California), U.S. House; accused of trading campaign support for his own support for the casino interests of the Chukchansi Indians
- Alvin Greene (D-South Carolina), U.S. Senate; charged with obscenity in November 2009 for showing pornography to a University of South Carolina student
- Timothy Griffin (R-Arkansas), U.S. House; protégé of Karl Rove who was appointed U.S. attorney despite having no experience as a prosecutor and was implicated in a scheme to disenfranchise black and military voters
- J.D. Hayworth (R-Arizona), U.S. Senate; as a member of the House of Representatives, used Jack Abramoff’s skyboxes for fundraisers without reporting the costs to the Federal Election Commission
- Ed Martin (R-Missouri), U.S. House; forced to resign as chief of staff to Governor Matt Blunt (son of Ray Blunt) after using government email accounts to oppose Democratic attorney general Jay Nixon
- Dino Rossi (R-Washington), U.S. Senate; cleared of legal wrongdoing after the Building Industry Association of Washington spent almost $7 million promoting his 2008 campaign for governor.
-David Wallechinsky
CREW's Crooked Candidates 2010 (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington)
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