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Rep. Oberstar under Fire for Political Contributions, Rail Injury Hearing U.S. House of Representatives’ Transportation and Infrastructure (T & I) Committee Chairman, Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) is coming under fire from a congressional watchdog group which is openly questioning whether or not there was any connection between an October 25, 2007 hearing held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on rail safety and contributions made to a political committee controlled by Oberstar.The story, on the website MajorityAP.com, is written by Michael Brady, a former Republican congressional staffer who is the site’s co-founder. Brady writes that Mr. William Jungbauer, a Minneapolis-based personal injury lawyer specializing in claims made by railroad workers, sent a letter to Oberstar dated July 24, 2007 stating, “Railroad workers who file personal injury reports are being harassed by their employers on a nationwide basis.” According to Federal Elections Commission records, Jungbauer then sent Oberstar’s campaign committee, Friends of Jim Oberstar, a $1000.00 contribution just four days later on July 28, 2007. Four days after that, on August 1, 2007 the T&I Committee staff scheduled a full-committee hearing which the Committee said would, “examine allegations…suggesting that railroad safety management programs sometimes either subtly or overtly intimidate employees from reporting on-the-job injuries.”It is certainly illegal, an act of bribery, to take any official act in exchange for a campaign contribution. There is no “smoking gun” that we know of in the public domain, or perhaps anywhere else, that documents any “quid pro quo” relating to the hearing in question.What there does seem to be, however is an example of three events in relatively quick succession which give the appearance of, at the very least, astoundingly bad judgment. Jungbauer’s July 24 letter to Oberstar requesting a hearing, Jungbauer’s $1000 contribution to Oberstar’s campaign committee of July 28 and the effort by Oberstar’s committee to set up the hearing on August 1 all occurring within an eight day span would make anyone look twice. Our guess is that people may look a third or fourth time to see what is really going on at the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. |