45 Days . . . and counting

Earlier this week news officially broke that Mr. Tiahrt is now under investigation by the House Committee on Standards for his involvement in the widely publicized PMA scandal that has been reported by many news outlets and discussed previously on this blog. Not only is Mr. Tiahrt under further investigation, but he is the only Republican of the PMA Seven to be further investigated by the House Committee on Standards. The basics of the case are that Mr. Tiahrt allegedly put earmarks into bills that gave contracts to clients of now-defunct lobbying firm PMA in exchange for political endorsements.

While Mr. Tiahrt claims that he is happy these investigations are going public, and hopeful that he will be soon exonerated of the charges; I believe that Mr. Tiahrt and his staff are probably shaking in their pants.

Time and again Kansas voters have been told by Mr. Tiahrt that he is the conservative choice for the Senate and that he will fight wasteful spending in Washington, but everybody knows that the most wasteful form of spending in Washington is the earmark process that only help a small group of the elite and powerful. If Mr. Tiahrt has been involved with creating these earmarks—that alone would be cause for Kansans to vote against him in this summer’s election, but if he was helping to write these earmarks in exchange for campaign contributions, I believe that would necessitate his resignation from Congress as well as removing himself from the current Senate campaign.

Luckily, there is now a time frame.

Kansas voters will not be forced to make a decision simply based on the rhetoric that politicians have been throwing around, but they will have definitive knowledge of Mr. Tiahrt’s involvement in the situation when they make their decision this summer. Either Mr. Tiahrt’s claims of innocence will be backed up, or he will be revealed as a lying Washington insider that should have no place representing the people of Kansas.

I can’t wait to see the results.

Patiently yours,

Publius