General Services Administration chief using position to help Pubs win elections?

[BrainGlutton]

Under the general heading of, “Wait! There’s more!”:

Lurita Doan, administrator of the General Services Administration, will appear on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer these allegations:

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove’s political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House’s deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could “help ‘our candidates’ in the next elections,” according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using “targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country.”

If this is true, Doan’s conduct may violate the Hatch Act. (Which carries no criminal penalties, but a violator can be removed from public office.)

Perhaps it is time to open a new national debate on just what a sitting presidential administration can and can’t do to help the president’s party in elections.

[BrainGlutton]

BTW, I guess this means W wasn’t just blowing smoke when he recently promised to restore the electoral fortunes of the GOP. He had specific tactics in mind. Which may be illegal.

[Ravenman]

Well, if the all-powerful General Services Administration is focusing their bureaucratic might on getting Republicans elected, Democrats have oh-so-much to fear!

If we allow this devious political tactic to stand, next the Federal Maritime Commission will get in on this and we Dems will be screwed!

(But seriously, it is a concerning allegation and should be investigated. But I can’t help but offer a few snide comments, wondering what the conversation was like. I can imagine the GSA Administrator saying, “We need to help out these Republican candidates! I’m going to organize a big fundraiser for them right after they fill out a copy of form 657-G in triplicate and have it notarized and filed in person during our office hours from 1pm to 3:15 pm on alternate Thursdays.”)

[RTFirefly]

@Ravenman

But I can’t help but offer a few snide comments, wondering what the conversation was like. I can imagine the GSA Administrator saying, “We need to help out these Republican candidates! I’m going to organize a big fundraiser for them right after they fill out a copy of form 657-G in triplicate and have it notarized and filed in person during our office hours from 1pm to 3:15 pm on alternate Thursdays.”

Having dealt with the GSA, that sounds about right.

After the U.S. Attorney purges, the only thing that would surprise me anymore in the way of the Bushies politicizing Cabinet departments is if they sent in the National Guard into Dem areas of swing states on Election Day to shut down the polls.

But precisely because something like this (the GSA thing, not the hypothetical military intervention) isn’t remotely a surprise anymore, perhaps it’s time to start building the case for impeachment.

[BrainGlutton]

By itself, of course, there’s not much the GSA can do to affect elections. The disturbing thing is that, taken with the attorney-purge scandal and various other things, it points to a pattern. (One apparent motive for the attorney purge was to facilitate suppressing Dem votes in 11 key states in 2008.)

Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect any administration to do nothing to help its party win elections. The president always goes around the country at election time and stumps for his party’s candidates – at the taxpayers’ expense. That’s routine and not even controversial. The question is, how far can that properly be taken? I think the Bush Admin seems to have broken new ground here.

[MovieMogul]

As I posted in another thread:

@ArchiveGuy

There are quite a number of videos of these hearings circulating, but this one is particularly damning. Lurita Doan’s evasions both defy belief and insult the intelligence of anyone watching them. Kudos to Congressman Braley (D-Iowa) for making the case in simple, clear, easy-to-understand terms that make the evidence of these efforts undeniable.

[Malodorous]

@ArchiveGuy

As I posted in another thread:

Wow, she’s screwed.

So is the Rove aide that set up that meeting going to (or has he already) testified?

[BrainGlutton]

Here’s another article about how the Bush Admin has been politicizing all branches of the federal government, undermining professionals and career civil servants, and replacing them with biddable loyalists.

[merrily]

This is getting more and more juicy.

First we had Lurita Doan.

Doan would not comment on whether she thought the presentation had political purposes. She characterized the 1:30 p.m. session as a “team building meeting” that is hosted every month and is exclusively for noncareer employees at GSA, which is the government’s procurement and property management arm. She told lawmakers she attends the meetings whenever she can, and that they involve a variety of speakers who address the group “in whatever particular area of expertise they have.”

Un-huh. Here is a link to the powerpoints from that meeting.

How blatant can you get?

Now Karl Rove is being brought into it.