ThinkProgress Logo

Stories tagged with “George Allen”

NEWS FLASH

George Allen Rejects Kaine Proposal To Curb Secret Money | Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who is now running for his old senate seat, rejected a proposal by likely Democratic nominee former Gov. Tim Kaine aimed at eliminating secret money from the 2012 Virginia senate race arising from 501(c)(4) groups like Crossroads GPS. Allen, who had earlier endorsed the concept of “full disclosure,” suggested that Kaine’s proposal was an “unfortunate gimmick, typical of the partisan gamesmanship playing out in Washington today.” Prior to this incident, Allen also rejected a Kaine proposal to eliminate super PAC spending similar to the agreement adopted in the Massachusetts senate race. Allen’s support for unlimited corporate and secret donors using shady 501(c)(4)s and super PAcs to influence the race is unsurprising: high-dollar political donors overwhelming favor Republicans.

NEWS FLASH

Georgia Senate Votes To Ban Undocumented Immigrants From Attending State Colleges | The Georgia Senate passed a bill 34-19 that would ban undocumented immigrants from attending any of Georgia’s 60 public colleges, even though state college officials have already said the bill is unnecessary. The measure now goes to the House for consideration, where another bill targeting undocumented immigrants and public colleges has not yet passed out of committee. Federal law does not prevent undocumented immigrants from attending public colleges. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency wrote in 2008 that “individual states must decide for themselves whether or not to admit illegal aliens into their public postsecondary institutions.”

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Mar 6, 2012 at 5:40 pm

Climate Progress

George Allen Invests In, Works For, And Campaigns Around Dirty Energy Corporations

By Josh Israel on Mar 2, 2012 at 10:09 am

LCV Ad: Senator George Allen - One Of the Worst Environmental Records Ever

League of Conservation Voters Ad Against George Allen

Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who is trying to regain the seat he lost in 2006, is making his support for pro-coal, oil, and energy corporation policies a huge part of his campaign. And a ThinkProgress Green analysis of his personal and campaign finance disclosure forms may show why.

In August, Allen submitted his required candidate financial disclosure report to the Secretary of the Senate. In it, he revealed:

–He owns between $108,009 and $370,000 in coal, oil, and other energy companies’ stock. The include holdings in Chevron Group, Devon Energy, Peabody Energy, General Electric, Praxair, Constellation Energy Group Inc., Nextera Energy Inc., Encana Corp., and Dominion Resources Inc.

–He received at least $15,000 in consulting and speaking fees from the dirty sector sector in the previous year. Those came in the form of a $5,000 speaker’s fee from the Ohio Coal Association and $5,000-or-larger consulting payments from both Alpha Natural Resources and the investment branch of Peabody Energy.

–He was paid $20,000 for his work as chairman of the American Energy Freedom Center, a pro-dirty energy group which engages in global warming denial. The organization is connected with the Exxon-Mobil Corporation-funded Institute for Energy Research.

Read the disclosure form (.PDF).

Since his first run for Congress in a 1991 special election, Allen has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from energy-sector corporate PACs. This includes some of the worst polluters in the country: Koch Industries (at least $28,500), Dominion Resources Inc. (at least $20,000), Occidental Petroleum (at least $17,000), Southern Company (at least $13,500), ExxonMobil (at least $12,500), and Marathon Oil (at least $10,100).

So it’s no wonder that Allen’s running a hugely pro-energy sector campaign. He advocates for more offshore drilling, construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline which would bring no jobs to Virginia, and deregulation. His @georgeallenva Twitter feed contains a non-stop parade of complaints about “gasoline prices,” “costs of fuel,” and “energy prices.” One recent Allen tweet pledged “On day one I will introduce a bill to open VA’s coast for exploration for oil and natural gas.”

Allen attempts to convince voters that his pro-industry policies would somehow bring gas prices back to $1.84 — rather than simply increase profits for the energy companies he invests in and worked for. But domestic oil production is at its highest point in nearly a decade while prices continue to rise.

In his one term in the senate from 2001 to 2007, Allen amassed what the League of Conservation Voters called “one of the worst environmental records ever.” Should Virginia return him to the senate, it seems clear Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Energy would have his vote and his undivided attention.

Economy

GOP Senate Hopeful George Allen Has A Case Of Balanced Budget Amendment Amnesia

By Josh Israel on Feb 21, 2012 at 6:05 pm

Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA)

Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA) is trying to regain the seat he lost in 2006 after his infamous bullying of an Indian-American campaign tracker who he called “macaca.” In this campaign, he is playing up is his support for a constitutional balanced budget amendment, in order to clean up the massive budget deficit that he helped run up last time he was in congress. And his allies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are also playing up the issue in their “independent” ads supporting him.

But video on Allen’s campaign site highlights his selective memory on this subject. As part of his “Ask George Allen” video series, Allen tells a questioner, “you do have my word to fight for a balanced budget amendment to the constitution as well as line-item veto authority.” He then explains his reasoning, saying:

In fact, while I was a member of the House of Representatives for one year in the early 1990s, I introduced the line item veto [and the] balanced budget amendment. We got it to a vote on the floor. And when I was in the Senate, a few years ago, I introduced it as well.

Watch the video:

But here’s what actually happened. In 2000, he ran against then-Sen. Chuck Robb (D), promoting his support for a balanced budget amendment. After getting elected, Allen waited more than five years to act. He neither authored nor co-sponsored a balanced budget amendment proposal in the Senate in the 107th or 108th Congress, while the Republican Congress and President George W. Bush took a $236 billion surplus and turned it into a $412 billion deficit. Instead, he focused his efforts on legislation like his Liberty Dollar Bill Act, a proposal to require that all U.S. one-dollar bills include the preamble to the constitution, a list of articles, and the first ten amendments.

Only in February 2006, when he was up for re-election, did Allen submit a balanced budget amendment proposal in the senate. In his speech announcing the bill, he said “I hope my colleagues recognize the seriousness, the importance, and the urgency” of his proposal. Allen was unable to get a single colleague to sign on as a co-sponsor.

But sure enough, his 2006 re-election site boasted that Allen “introduced a Constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.”

A constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget is, in the end, a gimmick that would either require massive tax increases or massive spending cuts — cuts which could have put 15 million Americans out of work if they were enacted this year. But still, Allen is throwing his weight behind the idea as a crowd-pleaser, when there’s no chance of him actually getting it enacted.

Climate Progress

George Allen Wants To Be Virginia’s Tar Sands Senator

By Josh Israel on Feb 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm

George Allen's attack ad

George Allen's attack ad

In a new ad for the Virginia U.S. Senate race, Republican candidate George Allen implausibly argues that the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport Canadian tar sands crude from Montana to Texas refineries, would benefit the state of Virginia.

The unnarrated 75-second spot, entitled “Unabashed,” laments that the nation has endured “35 straight months of unemployment above 8%” and highlights President Barack Obama’s administration’s rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Then, it shows a lengthy series of video clips and newspaper headlines tying likely Democratic nominee, former Gov. Tim Kaine, to the administration’s position and backing the tar sands project:

– “Obama’s decision will cost the U.S. jobs” [Chicago Tribune, 1/19/12]
– “Obama’s Keystone pipeline rejection is hard to accept” [Washington Post, 1/18/12]
– “Obama’s Keystone pipeline nix worries small business” [CNNMoney.com, 1/19/12]
– “Obama’s pipeline decision delays energy security” [USA Today, 1/18/12]

Watch the spot:

The ad ends with the text “Tim Kaine. President Obama’s Senator. NOT VIRGINA’S.”

The claims that the Keystone XL pipeline would be a significant job creator have been widely debunked and the media citations reference stories that relied on flawed information. But even if you believed the industry’s inflated claims of tens of thousands of jobs, is hard to imagine that a construction project nearly 1,000 miles away from even the Commonwealth’s western-most point would put a significant number of Virginians to work.

More likely to benefit, however, would be the big oil and other energy companies whose multi-million-dollar lobbying campaigns have focused heavily on pushing the pipeline’s construction. And, as it happens, that sector has heavily funded former Sen. Allen’s campaign. Though the campaign has refused to disclose the list clients at Allen’s company or what he did for the energy industry as a consultant in the time between his last campaign and this one, ThinkProgress reported last year that Allen founded an industry-tied group to oppose clean energy reforms, spoke at a global-warming deniers hosted by the Heartland Institute, and toured Virginia with the Koch Industries-funded Americans for Prosperity.

A more truthful ad would say: George Allen. Big Oil’s Senator. NOT VIRGINIA’S.

Politics

Chamber Of Commerce Supports Government Spending, But Runs Pro-GOP Ads Attacking ‘Big Government’

By Josh Israel on Feb 13, 2012 at 3:45 pm

Chamber of Commerce ad attacking "Big Government"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced a multi-state voter “education” ad blitz late last week. Tom Donohue, the group’s president and CEO, says the ads focus on a simple question: “Is big government or free enterprise the solution to our country’s economic problems?”

The blitz features an array of 30-second TV spots aimed at bucking up vulnerable Republican incumbents, supporting GOP House and Senate hopefuls, and criticizing Democrats. One spot supports Blue Dog Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT).

But there is a large element of hypocrisy and contradiction in the spots. One typical ad praises former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who was defeated in 2006 following his infamous bullying of an Indian-American campaign tracker who he called “macaca” and is seeking his party’s nomination for the same senate seat this November. The narrator says:

Big government isn’t going to help the American recovery. We need to focus on jobs to get our economy back on track. In the Senate, George Allen supported tax cuts that spurred economic growth. He supports a Balanced Budget Amendment. And as Virginia’s governor, Allen cut spending and waste with bipartisan support. Call George Allen. Tell him to keep fighting to promote Virginia jobs.

Watch the ad:

But the Chamber has a selective memory. It was a leading proponent of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus legislation promising that the tax cuts and even many of law’s spending provisions would “provide stimulus and get Americans back to work.” Allen has called the law a “jobless stimulus.”

Though the measure passed almost entirely along party lines, the Chamber spent millions in 2010 to defeat the Democrats who backed the bill — and some of that money may have come from foreign businesses. The $789 billion law has been the largest increase in spending in the Obama presidency.

A constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget would have rendered this stimulus bill — and the preservation of the Allen-backed tax cuts that the Chamber claims spurred growth — impossible.

But even if three years is too long ago for the Chamber to remember, one would think they could remember back to last week. For just as the group blitzed Americans with messages that a smaller government was a panacea to solve the woes of a demonstrably improving economy, its own “Americans for Transportation Mobility Coalition” launched an ad last week calling for more federal government spending on transportation. With clips of President Ronald Reagan, the spot demands “new investments in transportation to keep America moving and jobs growing.” That would likely mean more “big government.”

NEWS FLASH

George Allen Named To ‘Dirty Dozen’ List | The League of Conservation Voters has reserved the first spot on its yearly “Dirty Dozen” list for Virginia Senate candidate George Allen (R), who has “one of the worst environmental records ever.” Since leaving the Senate, Allen has become an oil lobbyist, helping earn him his spot. This is his third time making the Dirty Dozen.

Related Posts

By Brad Johnson on Feb 1, 2012 at 11:00 am

Economy

$260,000: The Cost Of Creating A Single Job Under George Allen’s Corporate Tax Cut Plan

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jun 23, 2011 at 7:10 pm

As part of his campaign to reclaim his old seat, former Sen. George Allen (R-VA) released an economic plan last week that calls for a massive tax cut for corporations, dropping the rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Touting the plan, Allen made the media rounds, proudly saying his plan would create 500,000 a jobs a year. Here he is trumpeting his plan on Fox Business yesterday:

Considering that economists say the country needs to create 250,000 job a month to bring down unemployment , 500,000 jobs a year is not very many. But more importantly, Allen’s own numbers show that corporate tax cuts are not an efficient way to create jobs.

Dropping the corporate tax rate to 20 percent would cost about cost about $1.3 trillion dollars over 10 years, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of data from the Tax Policy Center, or about $130 billion per year to create 500,000 jobs. That translates to about $260,000 in lost tax revenue for every job created. The median household income in 2009 was only $50,000. This is hardly surprising, considering that the Congressional Budget Office has found that a corporate tax cut “is not a particularly cost-effective method of stimulating business spending” and “does not create an incentive to spend more on labor.”

Despite that tremendous cost, nearly every Republican is calling for big corporate tax cuts, claiming it’s the only way to create jobs. But Allen, inadvertently, admitted that these cuts would have a lackluster result.

NEWS FLASH

Why George Allen Doesn’t Talk About Gay People Anymore | Roll Call’s Joshua Miller reports that as a senator, Virginia’s George Allen (R) “co-sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and worked a pledge to keep marriage ‘traditional’ into just about every re-election stump speech. But these days, as Allen tries to get his job back, he doesn’t talk about gay marriage.” That’s because voters in Virginia are now far more accepting of gay people than they were just five years ago. Then, “a strong majority of voters supported a state constitutional amendment to ban the recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions.” Today, 47 percent support same sex marriage, and 43 percent of Virginians oppose a constitutional amendment.

Politics

George ‘Macaca’ Allen Stereotypes Black Journalist: ‘What Position Did You Play?’

By Lee Fang on Apr 7, 2011 at 1:10 pm

Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who is running again for Senate in 2012, was called out in Twitter on Tuesday night for repeatedly questioning NBC4 anchor-reporter Craig Melvin about his nonexistent sports career. The Washington Post’s Tom Jackman reported on Allen’s apparent stereotyping of Melvin:

NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin’s Twitter account Tuesday night: “For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,”what position did you play?” I did not a play a sport.”

UPDATE: The son of former Redskins coach George Allen apologized to Melvin. “@georgeallenva:sorry if I offended, ask people a lot if they played sports Grew up in fball family found sports banter good way to connect”

Allen lost his seat after being caught on camera hurling racial epithets at a young staffer working for his Democratic opponent. The “macacca” scandal led to other revelations about Allen’s reactionary views on race, including a picture of Allen hanging out with a white supremacy group, and the fact that he had prominently displayed a noose in his Charlottesville law office.

Although Allen has tried to distance himself from his racist past, questions still linger about his view of racial minorities. For example, last year, I attended an event featuring Allen at the Heritage Foundation. After speaking once with the senator during the question and answer period, I again raised my hand for a second question. For some reason, possibly because I was the only minority in an all-white audience, Allen dismissed my second question by asking if I understood what an “at-bat” meant:

DUNLOP: I think we have one more question here. [pointing to me]

ALLEN: This guy has a question. I’ll talk to you afterwards [inaudible] let everyone get a bat [makes baseball bat swinging motion]. You understand at-bats — right?

Watch it:

In Allen’s worldview, every tall African American is a sports player, but Asian Americans have never heard of baseball.

Older

Newer

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up