I don’t intend to pick on Congressman Griffith, I am just scouting around to see what the “message” is that he needs to send by voting against his own judgment and the interests of the nation. It seems that his messages are, like those of many of his fellows, thank-you notes.
The Los Angeles Times, in a Feb. 6, 2011 article titled “Koch brothers now at heart of GOP power” by Tom Hamburger, Kathleen Hennessey and Neela Banerjee, point out that “The billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch no longer sit outside Washington’s political establishment…they are now at the center of Republican power, a change most evident in the new makeup of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.” Some of the 2010 candidates elected on Koch money signed a pledge put forward by Americans for Prosperity promising to oppose President Obama’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases.
Specifically in relation to Congressman Griffith here in Virginia’s Ninth District, the article says:
Another [committee member] Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia, won a long-shot bid to unseat a 14-term moderate Democrat with help from Americans for Prosperity, which marshaled conservative activists in his district. By some estimates, the advocacy group spent more than a quarter-million dollars on negative ads in the campaign. “I’m just thankful that you all helped in so many ways,” Griffith told an Americans for Prosperity rally not long after his election.
This article is a must-read for Democrats who are looking back at 2010 and for all Americans looking forward to 2012. It reports that Americans for Prosperity spent $40 million in the 2010 election cycle, most of it focused directly on disabling environmental protection powers of government. It converted Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan, now the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from a moderate who supported environmental protections to the leader of the effort to strip the EPA of the power to regulate greenhouse gases.
Life in the Third Layer 