Many groups lobbying on BRAC decision

A report in today's Dispatch lists a partial accounting of the many people, groups, and entities involved in lobbying this commission. For something that is supposedly "beyond politics", it certainly seems like there's a lot of politics going on. Either that or all of this is an utter waste of time and money. It states:

Quad City Development Group President Thom Hart said his organization will play the lead role in the community's response to the list, whether it contains bad news or good for the Rock Island Arsenal.

Working with the group will be a number of other players, both official and in the background.

One of the most visible will be Rock Island Mayor Mark Schwiebert, who has been a presenter for the group during lobbying trips to Washington.

Yet there will also be some the public never sees.

One of the first jobs following the release of the list will be to analyze the data used by the Defense Department to make its base-closing recommendations to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, Mr. Hart said.

The group has retired Arsenal workers to help with that, and it also can count on union locals on Arsenal Island, which will also undertake their own analysis, said Mary DeSmet, president of Arsenal-based Local 15 of the American Federation of Government Employees.

Further analytical help could come from the staffs of the Iowa and Illinois congressional delegations, who have years of experience in dealing with the Pentagon and the role of the Rock Island Arsenal.

Coming into the picture with the congressional staffs will be the development group's Washington lobbyists at the firm of Hurt, Norton & Associates. Robert H. Hurt and Frank Norton are former aides to retired U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

They have been working with the development group for a number of years and specialize in military issues. The firm's associate, Frank Takakoshi, has taken a lead role in dealing with the development group.

A secondary lobbying effort would come from the state of Illinois. The state last year allocated $140,000 to hire the Washington-based PMA Group to help protect the Arsenal and the state's National Guard bases in Springfield and Peoria, and Fleishman-Hillard International Communications to work with the Scott Air Force Base community in Belleville.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has assigned Jack Lavin, director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, to spearhead the state's support for the four communities, and he and the governor put in visits to Washington to talk up the case for the state's military facilities.

Mr. Hart said PMA will assist the Quad-Cities effort, but it was too early to tell in what capacity until the base closing list is issued.

Still to be named, potentially, is a high-profile Quad-City liaison to the BRAC commission. Other communities hired former military commanders to present their cases to the commission during hearings and base visits in past rounds, and the development group has discussed doing the same, Mr. Hart said.

No candidate has yet been chosen, he said, and whether one will be hired will depend, again, on the impact of the base-closing round on the Quad-Cities.

Finally, the Quad-Cities can look to its Iowa and Illinois lawmakers for at least verbal and moral support, with six of the delegation's seven congressmen and senators having served in Congress during at previous base-closing rounds.

This last paragraph does indicate that politicians apparently are not supposed to take a direct role in lobbying the commission. But to believe that strings are not being pulled, backs scratched, favors called in, etc. would be pretty naive. Hell, the BRAC process would seem to be a suplimental pension program for retired military brass to collect fat paychecks whether they get results or not.

Perhaps this is a debate for "None" and "Hud50". Hud50 believes that politicians have no role in this effort, and "None" has already attempted to pre-emptively blame Lane Evans for any future cuts at the Arsenal. Both of them can't be right.

Ed Tibbett's informative piece in the Times can be found here.