What Does a Defense Contractor Have To Do To Get Noticed?

As much as I love Rep. Grayson’s realization that the anti-ACORN bill (pages 236-238) would actually take down the entire military-industrial complex, I woke up this morning realizing it gets even better. Last year, when Congress was considering Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s bill to hold government contractors accountable, the Chamber of Commerce came out full force.

Her bill made the perfectly sane and reasonable argument that if a contractor was found guilty of a violation of law two times, it would no longer be eligible for federal contracts. And these violations are not simply filing false forms: they have in the past been for things like knowingly providing substandard equipment to our troops or violating the Arms Export Control Act by selling military equipment to known enemies of our government. 

This two strikes and you’re out rule was considered totally over-the-top by the contractor lobbyists and the subject of heated debate in the House and Senate. After some maneuvering by Sen. McCaskill, the language was included on the Defense Authorization bill so that at least defense contractor misconduct would be officially chronicled in a public database. But no – even THAT was still just a little bit too aggressive. It was actually Democratic committee staff who didn’t want to be so mean to the apparently thin-skinned defense contractor industry.

In the end, the Senate agreed to create the database, but decided it would not be publicly available because they didn't want to embarrass contractors.  In the House, Rep. Henry Waxman made sure the contractor responsibility database survived conference. But you guessed it, the law that was passed by Congress and signed by President Bush was stripped of the repeated bad-actor provision.  So now that the Democratic Congress has easily passed a bill that was intended to embarrass ACORN, I’m left wondering: what does a defense contractor have to do to get noticed?

-- Danielle Brian

Comments

[Posted on: Apr 18, 2011 at 10:34 PM]

The bills in the “Save Our Democracy” package might be in jeopardy in light of this week’s Supreme Court decision, but Grayson may soon have some pretty powerful allies ready to join his fight.

[Posted on: Sep 28, 2009 at 01:33 PM]

Um, how about drink vodka out of each other's butt cracks and engage in sex slave trafficking? Oh, never mind. We already know that's not enough.