Presided over last Trump impeachment trial in lieu of Justice Roberts.
Says first ‘elected 1974’ he's running again for his 9th term. Eigthy year old, Demo-rat from VT, born 3/31/40, who’s also listed as 5x Batman movie actor.
He has 3 kids, one daughter who lobbies for Hollywood MPAA. “ Lobbying disclosure forms show Jackson lobbied on the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2015. Leahy served as one of 44 co-sponsors. In early 2015, she worked to influence the nomination of an intellectual property enforcement coordinator, a position created by Leahy in a 2008 piece of legislation. She has lobbied on behalf of a smattering of broad topics often addressed in the Senate Judiciary Committee, including cyber security, internet rules, copyright law, immigration and domestic drone regulations. She worked to influence policy around the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a domain-name group her father helps oversee.‘ (Vtdigger.org)
Famous for quote: ‘We need to consider nominations as thoroughly and carefully as the American people deserve. No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.”
Nickname, “Leaky” Leahy.
Sits on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; Appropriations, Ranking Member Judiciary; Rules and Administration.
(Taken from: https://vtdigger.org/2016/09/11/leahys-daughter-lobbies-senate-hollywood/) In total, the MPAA has spent more than $3 million on lobbying since Jackson joined the organization’s lobbying team.
Craig Holman, a campaign finance and government ethics expert for Public Citizen, a watchdog organization, said current lobbying rules are too lenient and allow for inappropriate influence by family members in Congress. “Special interests that have pending business before a member of Congress often look to throw money at the feet of a family member,” he said. “That way these lobbies can still use their connections — at arms length — to get access.” Holman added that there is no real enforcement mechanism to stop inappropriate lobbying.
“We rely on the integrity of the lobbyist to set up that firewall,” Holman said. And he added, if a violation occurs, the penalty is a private or public letter of reprimand to a member of Congress. Before Jackson was an MPAA lobbyist, she served in “global communications” at the organization between 2011 and 2015. During Jackson’s time at MPAA, Leahy has received more than $400,000 in support from the entertainment industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Sen. Leahy’s top 20 contributors from that period include four of the six members of the MPAA – Time Warner ($30,000), Walt Disney Co. ($22,500), 21st Century Fox ($20,700) and Sony Corp. ($19,100). Leahy’s Green Mountain PAC, which has supported a number of U.S. Senate candidates, has taken $21,000 from the entertainment industry over the past year. Leahy’s office has been in close communication with entertainment executives, according to Sony emails made public by WikiLeaks in 2014. In one email chain from February 2014, details are discussed about a fundraiser for Leahy that took place at the house of Bob Iger, the current CEO of Disney. Former senator and current MPAA CEO Chris Dodd was scheduled to attend that event. A May 2014 email chain shows executives planning a phone call between Michael Lynton — the current CEO of Sony — and Leahy. “I just spoke with Michael Lynton, and advised him of the nominating committee’s action today,” wrote internet entrepreneur Steve Case on May 14, 2014. “I also told him that three members of the committee wanted to speak with him at some point in the next couple weeks. So please proceed to set up calls with Senator Leahy [and others].” A photo on the website of Washington Life Magazine shows Leahy, his wife Marcelle and Alicia at an MPAA party in April 2011. Leahy’s close relationship with the movie industry has been well known for years, and is perhaps best exemplified in his cameo roles in Time Warner’s Batman movies. The biggest pushback Leahy felt after introducing a pro-MPPA bill came in 2012 with the Protect IP Act. While Leahy defended its merits vigorously, it failed to pass after an unprecedented wave of online activism alleging it would censor too many websites if they were found to have inadvertently hosted copyrighted content. Leahy rejected claims he pushed the legislation because he was beholden to the entertainment industry. “I’m a movie buff and love going to movies, but that doesn’t mean I always agree with the MPAA,” he said. He pointed to a number of times he has split with the MPAA, including his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the Comcast-Time Warner merger. In another big break with the MPAA, Leahy has been a champion of net neutrality. MPAA lobbies on EB-5 The MPAA has taken interest in a controversial program Leahy has promoted for many years: the EB-5 visa program. The national EB-5 program allows immigrants to invest $500,000 in projects located in high-unemployment areas. If each investment creates 10 jobs, the investors are eligible for permanent U.S. residency. The program has been around since 1993, and Leahy has led the charge for reauthorization five times, including in 2003 when he secured a five-year extension. While the MPAA lobbied specifically on EB-5 issues over the period Jackson, Leahy’s daughter, worked in outreach and communications for the association, the MPAA has not specifically tried to influence Congress on EB-5 matters over the past two years in which she has served as a lobbyist.
Alejandro Mayorkas. DHS photo Recently, MPAA lobbyists — including Jackson — have worked in the Senate on the broad topic of “immigration” as well as several other visa programs. Immigration issues are often taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee where her father is a former chair and leading Democrat on the committee. Holman, the expert on government ethics, said that even if a family member of a congressperson is not a lobbyist, they can still be an asset for a special interest group while working for an organization in a different role. “There can be lobbying activity even if someone is not a registered lobbyist,” Holman said. “In that case, nothing is disclosed.” Hollywood studios began taking advantage of EB-5 money as early as 2009. There have been hundreds of investor petitions worth hundreds of millions of dollars that have been steered toward Hollywood movies. A 2015 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General found that the LA Films Regional Center was given preferential treatment on multiple occasions by Alejandro Mayorkas, the former director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. (The report also found problems with Mayorkas’ oversight of centers in Las Vegas and on the Gulf Coast.) The preferential treatment from Mayorkas — in which he exhorted employees overseeing Hollywood EB-5 projects to “get to yes” — included efforts to finance films produced by Sony Pictures and Time Warner — two members of the MPAA. In early 2010, the LA Films Regional Center proposed a Time Warner project with 240 pending EB-5 petitions. The IG report described a number of issues with the project: “Time Warner had not committed to borrowing the money; the job creation estimates were not sourced; there was insufficient evidence that the Time Warner productions would result in more jobs; the jobs created would be intermittent, temporary, or seasonal; and some petitioners had problematic escrow agreements.” While USCIS officials were preparing to deny the request, Mayorkas worked to usurp their power, creating and staffing a review board that directed the Hollywood petitions to be approved. “This was in effect a de facto approval of the investor petitions as long as there were no national security issues and each investor could demonstrate having the necessary funds to invest,” the IG report reads. Documents show a separate Sony project, which included 200 investor petitions, had troubling problems, too. Sony did not commit to spending the EB-5 funds, and there was no proof the money would be spent in an approved “Target Employment Area.” On the Sony project, USCIS officials were again prepared to veto the project. But an email from Sony’s legal counsel promising to use the EB-5 investor funds quickly reversed that decision.
Former USCIS head Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a DHS event. Photo courtesy DHS In both the Sony and Timer Warner cases, the report accused Mayorkas of giving “improper personal access” to Tom Rosenfeld, who runs the LA Film Center and was urging expedited approval of the EB-5 projects. “One career EB-5 official told us staff were forced ‘to go above and beyond for Tom Rosenfeld,’ reflecting their belief that Rosenfeld was receiving preferential treatment,” the IG report reads. Shortly after the LA Film Center was established, in 2009, Rosenfeld donated $4,800 to Leahy’s U.S. Senate campaign committee. Mayorkas has been a key EB-5 ally to Leahy, including when he allowed the Vermont senator’s interpretation of the EB-5 job requirements to include out-of-state, indirect jobs. Leahy, in turn, has been a big supporter of Mayorkas. In 2013, when Mayorkas was nominated to the post of deputy secretary of Homeland Security, Leahy rebuffed Republicans who pointed to the IG report on the LA Film Center as a troubling sign. In a statement at the time Leahy said, “this flawed investigation does not merit the delay of Director Mayorkas’ confirmation process.” In the end, Mayorkas was confirmed to the post, a position he still holds. Asked about the LA Film Center and Mayorkas’ advocacy on the Sony and Time Warner projects, Leahy said he did not recall the alleged malfeasance. He reiterated that he has been trying to reform the EB-5 program for years. “What they were doing in LA, I have no idea,” he said. In 2012, as the EB-5 program was set to expire, lobbying reports show the MPAA working on EB-5 issues in the Senate. A few months later, in September 2012, just days before the program was set to end, Leahy won congressional approval for a three-year reauthorization of the program.
Presided over last Trump impeachment trial in lieu of Justice Roberts.
Says first ‘elected 1974’ he's running again for his 9th term. Eigthy year old, Demo-rat from VT, born 3/31/40, who’s also listed as 5x Batman movie actor.
He has 3 kids, one daughter who lobbies for Hollywood MPAA. “ Lobbying disclosure forms show Jackson lobbied on the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2015. Leahy served as one of 44 co-sponsors. In early 2015, she worked to influence the nomination of an intellectual property enforcement coordinator, a position created by Leahy in a 2008 piece of legislation. She has lobbied on behalf of a smattering of broad topics often addressed in the Senate Judiciary Committee, including cyber security, internet rules, copyright law, immigration and domestic drone regulations. She worked to influence policy around the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a domain-name group her father helps oversee.‘ (Vtdigger.org)
Famous for quote: ‘We need to consider nominations as thoroughly and carefully as the American people deserve. No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.”
Nickname, “Leaky” Leahy.
Sits on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; Appropriations, Ranking Member Judiciary; Rules and Administration.