OH-15: Deb Pryce's plan to spend more time with her child in Columbus-- become a D.C. lobbyist!
In August 2007, then-Congresswoman Deborah Pryce shocked the Republican Party with the announcement that she decided not to seek re-election in what was shaping up to be a rematch against her 2006 Democratic opponent/now Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy. At the time, Pryce cited the "needs of her family" in the Columbus area as the primary reason for her decision to retire.
Today in the Columbus Dispatch:
Former GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce of Upper Arlington has joined the Washington office of the law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice in its government affairs practice.
Pryce, 57, is not a registered lobbyist for the firm, and in any case the just-retired lawmaker is still under a one-year ban on lobbying Congress.
...
Also joining the firm is Pryce’s former congressional chief of staff, Lori Salley, as a senior government relations advisor.
Of course, that one-year ban expires after this year. So she's cooling her heels doing everything short of what is banned--personal lobbying-- until she's able to do that next year. She's still giving the lobbyist all the intel and strategies they need on her former colleagues. That's why the lobbying ban in Congress is such a joke. Plus, don't tell me the firm isn't using the announcement of her employment as an "in" with Members of Congress.
So it sounds like Deb Pryce really decided to retire to spend more time with Washington lobbyists and her former congressional staff.
Your best defense is that she needs the money? Given that Pryce is a former judge and lawyer, I think she shouldn't had too much trouble finding working doing something in Columbus rather than being a D.C. high-price lobbyist. You don't see the inherent hypocracy of someone who had a high rate of missed votes in her last term because she was supposedly spending more time with her family than doing the job she was elected to do, and then... after a year of cashing her public salary during that time, turning around and signing with a D.C. firm to lobby Congress.
Pryce might actually spend more time in the Capital next year than she did in her entire final term. For someone who cited her family in Columbus as a reason for her absenteeism and eventual retirement, Pryce's actions makes that all seem rather phony to me.
...all the other bullsh!t excuses were taken.
Ain't nothing to see here, folks. Everybody just move along.