Ousted Lawmakers Raking It In

From Newsmax:

Republican senators and House members who were turned out of office in November are finding a financial windfall after Congress.

In all, 22 GOP representatives and six senators are lining up new careers after failing to win re-election. (No Democrat running for re-election lost.) And while House members earn a $165,200 annual salary, former lawmakers can expect wages from $250,000 to $2 million a year in the outside world, said former House Republican leader Dick Armey, 66, a senior policy adviser with the lobbying firm DLA Piper in Washington.

Some of the beaten Republicans are following Armey’s path and becoming lobbyists. Defeated Montana Sen. Conrad Burns was hired by GAGE Business Consulting and Government Affairs, a lobbying group founded by his former chief of staff, Leo Giacometto, Bloomberg.com reports.

By law, Burns can't lobby for a year, so he will spend this year as a “senior adviser,” according to the firm's Web site.

Florida Republican Clay Shaw, ousted from the House in November, is seeking a job as a corporate director. Other defeated lawmakers are moving on to research institutions and universities. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is joining the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which describes itself as Washington's “premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy.”

Santorum will also receive fees for speeches and is considering writing a book to provide his family with “a little more financial stability and security,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Former New Hampshire Rep. Charles Bass became president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, an organization that advocates fiscal responsibility, according to Bloomberg. Bass will also join the board of directors of New Hampshire-based New England Wood Pellet LLC.

Former Sen. Mike DeWine will return to his alma mater, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, to teach an undergraduate course called “Inside American Politics.” Lincoln Chafee, who lost his re-election bid for the Senate from Rhode Island, has accepted a teaching position at Brown University in Providence as a distinguished visiting fellow with the Watson Institute for International Studies.

And Iowa's Jim Leach, who served 15 terms in the House before losing in November, has been offered a position at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Said Armey: “I know of only a few cases where members failed to make more than they did as members of Congress.”