What Would Jesus Say?????

Arizona Congressman Trent Franks took a $500 contribution from Raymond last summer. Bobby Raymond still did deals. And Congressman Franks, a vociferous Christian fundamentalist and self-professed fiscal conservative, is so broke he shamelessly took cash from a known felon busted for political corruption. First, this is not a case of mistaken identity. Congressman Franks knows who Bobby Raymond is; hell, everyone knows who Bobby Raymond is. But Congressman Franks especially knows who Bobby Raymond is because they ran against each other back in the day for a House seat in District 18 with the soon-to-be felon winning by 200 votes. Second, this is not a case of deep political corruption. Far from it. Congressman Franks is like one of those buffoons you stumble across in the back chapters of a Mark Twain novel. With broken fedora, busted brogans, and torn jacket, our hero cannot sell enough medicinal elixir to stay solvent. He is so inept with money that he is sober against his will. Someone else will have to buy the next round. When he ran for Congress in 2002, Franks promised never to take money from Political Action Committees because he claimed the lobbyists who fund PACs wanted favors for their checks. But if Franks is so desperate that he vacuumed cash from the guilty and incarcerated, perhaps you won't be shocked to learn that the Congressman has gone back on his word and these days inhales PAC donations like Mississippi River riff-raff heedlessly gorging on a slops bucket.

The Congressman's sleaze with PAC funding and campaign finance is aggravated by two remarkable priors: First, he needs the special interest money to satisfy personal debt; second, his inner circle is, and always was, tainted by the three stooges of Arizona political ethics -- Evan Mecham, Charles Keating and J. Fife Symington III. [All of whom were staunch McCain supporters by the way - ed]

Franks didn't return repeated phone calls seeking comment. But his record speaks for itself. Nearly two decades of public life rattle with back taxes due, tax liens, lawsuits, judgments, car repossession, expired auto tags and federal fines. For much of this period, he nickel-and-dimed taxpayers until you could picture him wandering around church picnics with a Post-it note on his forehead that read: "Deadbeat."

If Congressman Trent Franks was your brother-in-law, you would fire your sister.

But he's not some shirt-tail relative with a series of get-rich scams. He has moved from working oil and gas leases to serious debt on the public dole.

Franks moved to Arizona and ran for office one step ahead of the law.

In 1984, the same year he won his first and only seat in the statehouse, a Texas judge ruled that Franks and his brother owed Halliburton industries -- yes, Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton -- nearly $30,000 in principal, interest and attorneys' fees.

Five years later, the lawyers were still chasing Franks for the money. In 1989, the parties finally settled. Terms of the settlement remained confidential.

Throughout the '80s and into the '90s, fiscal conservative Trent Franks pushed a new tax theory: If you are short of cash, don't pay the government. He cavalierly ignored his taxes -- and notices to pay back taxes -- forcing the government, federal and state, to impose liens. The nine penalties ran from a substantive personal lien by the feds for nearly five grand, to the picayune of several hundreds. Large and small, he was behind on all before he was eventually forced to make good.

Not much changed when Franks was elected to Congress in 2002. Last year the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) fined him $4,200 for election fund-raising violations because of lax reporting and recordkeeping.

Franks' treasury burst with money from the likes of Raytheon, Boeing, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, and others with federal contracts and a kinship for legislators who sit on the House Armed Services Committee.

One military constituency that has not contributed significantly to Franks is armed services veterans. Although they are organized into groups like the American Legion, veterans' groups' bylaws generally forbid PAC donations.

On March 21, 2003, two days after American troops invaded Iraq, Franks voted to slash veterans' benefits by $28 billion.

Congressman Trent Franks clutches a Bible to his breast as justification for holding office the way that a swashbuckler uses a parrot as part of the get-up.

Franks' loud Christianity prompts him to challenge laws separating church and state. He is insistent that prayer, Christian prayer, specifically, must be reinserted into the classroom. More alarmingly, he supports a pro-life stance that is breathtaking in its virulence.

Here is an example of what I am talking about:

In his first bid for Congress in District 2, he distributed a faith-based tape to selected households. The film carried a note from the candidate's wife who wrote that Franks' "deep Christian faith and courage have always sustained our family."

The video featured a speaker from Mission Media.

Mission Media is interesting on a number of fronts. Based not in Arizona but in Idaho, records at the Secretary of State's office in Boise show that it is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation that, amongst other things, makes religious videos about missionary work.

In 2002, the Franks campaign paid Mission Media $3,000. In the campaign video, Mission Media's board officer, Michael Boerner, appeared urging viewers to vote for Franks.

Yet the articles of incorporation state clearly that as a 501(c)(3), the business "shall not participate in statements, any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."

Mission Media apparently violated both the spirit and the letter of the law. On July 7, 2003, Mission Media was administratively dissolved by the state of Idaho "for failure to file the required annual report . . ."

Though reinstated this year, the company and the Franks video are a stark reminder of what happens when church, state and demagoguery mix. After September 11, 2001, I think decency ought to compel religious zealots to loosen the grip upon public microphones, legislative ballots and incendiary rhetoric.

How Would Jesus Vote?

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