Joe Barton knows a little bit about shakedowns.

[babylonsister]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/congressman-shakedown-knows-whereof-he.html

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Joe Barton knows a little bit about shakedowns. After all he's taken many millions in campaign cash from the oil industry. But he doesn't stop at just campaign money:

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News
[e-mail]

WASHINGTON – Rep. Joe Barton has earned nearly $100,000 from an interest in natural gas wells that he purchased from a longtime campaign donor who also advised the congressman on energy policy, according to interviews and records.

At a hearing last month of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Barton said he was "a small, small partner in a natural gas well in Johnson County in the Barnett Shale that is probably my 4-year-old son's college education." He later told a reporter that he couldn't remember precisely how he obtained the interest.

Land records show that Barton, R-Arlington, purchased his interest from Walter G. Mize, a Cleburne businessman who donated more than $30,000 to Barton's campaigns.

Mize urged Barton to create a federal oil and gas research program that was included in a 2005 energy law. Barton's ties to Mize, who died in 2008, go back 20 years, according to friends of both men.

Barton's interest could become controversial at a time when Congress is considering sweeping energy legislation that would boost demand for natural gas. Congressional experts say such deals raise ethical questions for lawmakers, who are expected by the public to maintain a firewall between their personal finances and official duties.

"If you are elected as a public servant to try to do what is right for the public generally and then you use that position to help bring in material wealth, I think it's unethical," said James Thurber, a distinguished professor of government at American University.

Yeah, I would guess most people agree with that.