A huge scandal erupted on The Hill Monday when it was reported that Nevada incumbent Congresswoman Shelley Berkley led an effort that stopped the shutdown of a program that helped her husband's medical practice. She won't talk about it, but her husband confirmed that they talk about politics and medicine all the time. Wow, in other words, what's the big deal?
So like the Democrats in the Illinois State House - especially State Rep. Maria Berrios (D-Chicago) who told Illinois Review last year that the fact her father Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Berrios was lobbying for an expansion of gambling didn't make a bit of difference to her vote in the House's Gaming Committee. Why, she said, they don't even discuss politics. Read the story HERE.
But back to Congresswoman Berkley ... as the New York Times reports -
Federal regulators moved to shut down the kidney transplant program, but the proposed penalty brought a rebuke from Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat of Nevada, who helped lead a successful effort to get the officials from Washington to back down.
In pleading for a reprieve, Ms. Berkley and other members of Nevada’s Congressional delegation said they were acting on behalf of the state’s families, citing dire health consequences if the program was halted. But the congresswoman’s efforts also benefited her husband, a physician whose nephrology practice directs medical services at the hospital’s kidney care department — an arrangement that expanded after her intervention and is now reflected in a $738,000-a-year contract with the hospital.
Isn't politics a family business?? Some lawmakers never thought anything different.
