We all know that Republicans make no bones abut “dancing with them what brought ’em,” but the past eight years have been a veritable carnivale of terpsichorian cavorting.  And lately the news has been especially full of Republicans doing their duty for their corporate masters.

1.  State politicians do their little bit to help their friends.

An interesting example can be found in a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Consumers say lobbyists win at their expense” (8/15/08), which openly asserts that:

Industry lobbyists in Jefferson City won big-time this week when it came to fire safety equipment at nursing homes and investigations of insurance companies. Consumers weren’t so lucky.

Lobbyists persuaded members of a Missouri legislative panel to block rules requiring sprinklers and new fire safety standards for nursing homes.

Separately, the legislators then rejected pleas from a consumer group warning that buyers of auto and home insurance are losing key consumer protections.

The legislative panel in question is the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR). JCAR consists of six Republicans and four Democrats and acts as a review board with veto power over governmental rules.  This means it has lots of power, the balance of which, obviously, lies with the Republican members.  As the article’s author, Michael Sorkin notes:

… critics believe industry lobbyists use JCAR to “veto” regulations behind the scenes that they couldn’t kill in public

That means, lobbyists use their tame legislators to kill inconvenient rules.

The upshot is that the Panel voted 9-0 to kill the fire safety standards and raised no objections–in spite of strong testimony from a spokesman from the Consumers Council of Missouri–to proposed rules from the state Insurance Department that effectively weaken consumer protections.  

Providing a glimpse of how the balance of power works on this panel were the dispirited remarks of Democratic Senator Joan Bray who

… said she would have offered … a motion [against the rules] but it was clear there would be no support for it.

Too bad she and the other Democrats didn’t think it might be wise to try to establish that there is a difference between them and the majority Republicans when it comes to rules that can affect the well-being of the public.

2.  Kit Bond tries to work his magic for the well-heeled.

A second recent example concerns our esteemed Senator Kit Bond. At issue are requirements for federal grants designed to encourage small businesses to pursue cutting-edge research.  As Deirdre Shesgreen of the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau observes (8/17/08):

The program steers more than $2 billion annually in federal grants to small businesses. And at a time of heightened concern about America’s place in the global economy, the grants are designed to bolster U.S. innovation, funding front-line research to cure chronic diseases, developing new defense applications and bolstering alternative energy sources, among other things.

Currently, firms that have secured significant venture capital backing are exempt from receiving these grants.  But, not to worry, Senator Bond is on the case:

Congress is on the cusp of loosening that requirement, a move critics have blasted as a potential boon to multimillion-dollar venture-capital companies. Small- business advocates say the proposal could squeeze out fledgling startup firms that can’t attract big-dollar investors.

At the center of the legislative storm is Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., who is pushing the measure to open the small-business grant program to firms that are majority owned by multiple venture-capital companies.

Bond and other proponents say the move will give a vital boost to small businesses, especially biotech companies that can’t get regular bank loans for early stage research.

Funny how Republicans always talk about helping small business when they really have much bigger fish to fry:

But other small-business advocates say Bond’s proposal would hurt nascent firms engaged in high-risk innovation, benefiting well-heeled investors instead.

3.  Congressional Republicans heart Big Oil.

Finally, a little humor: For a real laugh, the kind that leaves you crying, check out this article by John Boehner who is organizing the dog-and-pony show that he characterizes as “the House Republicans’ unprecedented nationwide gas-prices protest.”

Of course, these Republican antics could have nothing to do with protecting their big-oil buddies, could they?   Certainly these new-fledged populists could not be taking advantage of the willful ignorance of a public that is all too ready to believe that giving the oil industry carte-blanche to drill anywhere and everywhere is the magic that will bring down oil prices?  Of course not; these noble souls, the House Republicans,

… are standing with stressed out families, small business owners, and seniors, and we will continue to hold the Democrat-controlled Congress accountable for its failure to address this crisis – one in which fuel costs have soared by 60 percent since Mrs. Pelosi took the gavel on Jan. 4, 2007.

Coulda fooled me–didn’t these same defenders of the public welfare refuse to vote for an energy package that might have actually addressed some of our energy problems? Oh, but it also included a wind-fall tax provision among several others that might have distressed their Big-Oil pals.