House Republicans have announced that Dreier and Roy Blunt of Missouri would share leadership responsibilities in an interim arrangement for the rest of the year, but that Blunt would hold the title of Majority Leader.
Having served on then-Governor George W. Bush’s original ten person exploratory committee and as the liaison between the House and the Bush campaign, Blunt has close ties to the Bush Administration. When Blunt was named Missouri’s Republican of the Year in 2000, President Bush described him as "a leader who knows how to raise his sights and lower his voice."
If the probe into DeLay's misdeeds widens further, Republicans may yet be looking for another Majority Leader. Blunt has always been an intimate of DeLay's, constantly voting in lockstep with the Texan and accepted a donation of $16,019 from Tom DeLay's ARMPAC. His PAC, the Rely on Your Beliefs Fund, has received donations totalling $150,000 from ARMPAC in 2000.
Blunt is notorious for his ties to the special interests in Washington. His behavior has proven embarassing to fellow members of the GOP caucus on more than one occasion.
Just days after ascending to the #3 leadership post in the House, Blunt got caught slipping in a special provision to benefit Phillip Morris, a longtime contrbutor to Blunt, and the employer of his then-girlfriend, Abigail Perlman. His wife is now a lobbyist and one of her clients, Altria, gave $270,000 to Blunt-related committees.
Other firms which have each donated $150,000 or more to his committees - SBC, UPS and Burlington Northern - are clients of his lobbyist son, Andrew.
Jim Ellis, also under indictment for his role in the Delay scandal, was also first a director and later a consultant to Blunt's PAC, the Rely on Your Beliefs Fund.
More of the same old cronyism and corruption, in other words.
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