And the Lobbyists Continue to Buy Congressman Billy Long...

It was about two years ago Sarah Steelman endorsed Billy Long telling Southwest Missouri voters Billy Long would not be influenced by special interest.

I hope you will consider voting for Billy Long for Congress. The way I see it is we need someone who is not part of the political establishment. We need someone who loves his country and is willing to put his country before himself; before his party; before politics as usual; before special interest groups; before lobbyists; and before his colleagues in Congress. We need someone who will put YOU before money and power and influence. -- Sarah Steelman in her endorsement letter of Congressman Billy Long

It appears Billy Long is now the "status quo" the Republican establishment's mini-skirt queen Steelman claims to oppose in one of her latest commercials.

Randy Turner writes in his blog called The Turner Report:

Question for Billy Long: Who's this woman?

Her name is Lisa Waltzman. She hails from Chevy Chase, Md.

Though I haven't heard of her entering a 12-step program or anything, she has the burden of being a contributor to Billy Long's re-election campaign.

She didn't give much. Long's quarterly report, filed Saturday with the FEC, shows she contributed $250 on June 27.

Apparently, Long's people did not know much about Ms. Waltzman, since they did not list an occupation on the report, simply writing "employer requested."

It took me a five second online search to find her employer.

She's a lobbyist. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) She works for the powerful firm of Steptoe & Johnson, and is described this way on her page on the firm's website:

Lisa M. Waltzman is a policy advisor for the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where she is affiliated with the Government Affairs & Public Policy practice.Ms. Waltzman is a Capitol Hill veteran who provides advice on a range of issues from legislative strategy to policy analysis to fundraising. She combines an extensive understanding of a range of policy matters with a unique knowledge in the sometimes arcane Rules of the United States House of Representatives.Prior to working with the firm, Ms. Waltzman was President of LWM Strategies, where she devised and implemented government affairs strategies, advocated on behalf of clients before the House and Senate Commerce and Homeland Security Committees and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, drafted and edited policy documents, assisted in event planning and lobbying activities, and coordinated fundraising activities.

Her description goes on for a few more paragraphs.

She's a lobbyist.

And not the only one who conributed to Billy Long's campaign, according to the report...

If you read on in Turner's piece, there's a whole long list of lobbyists Billy Long's campaign has taken money from, proving once again Billy Long was never fed up of the way things are done in Washington, and that Sarah Steelman is not a very good job of character when it comes to ridding Washington of the status quo.

 Read more at The Turner Report.