Were you wondering how our friends in the Congressional Caucus on Central Asia did in the elections this past week?
Well, you needn't have worried because *every single one of them* got re-elected.
Whoever put this caucus together was a genius for figuring out how to bullet-proof a caucus from both sides of the aisle -- even in Virginia, which turned from blue (Democratic) to red (Republican) and even in some very tough races in California and Nevada, the CCCA members all won.
Oh, but they didn't campaign about Central Asia, Lord no.
In fact, Central Asia wasn't mentioned during the elections at all (that I could find), unless you count Afghanistan -- which was mentioned sometimes, but only after bunches of other issues, whether driving while talking on your cell phone, gay marriage, witchcraft -- oh, and maybe oil drilling and the bailout.
To follow this caucus, however, first...you'd have to know who's in it!
As other bloggers have complained, despite all this Gov 2.0 transparency jazz, a lot of these caucuses don't list their members, and only show you their co-chairs.
I wrote asking the staff for the list -- never heard back.
Some of the individual members might mention that they are a member of this or that caucus on their web page, but not all of them do that.
Faleomavaega, once a member of Democratic Socialists of America, was instrumental in creating the caucus. His interest in the region grew out of his opposition to nuclear testing in American Samoa, which he represents, and the similarity of the issue for Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.
There are an enormous number of tools to track Congress now in too-much-information glory. You can find out what they are having for breakfast on Twitter; you can see which lobbies are partying with them; you can find out what payments they get from foreign governments (this is legal, and merely has to be reported under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act).
You can find out that Kazakhstan spent $320,000 last year (my God, we're a cheap date!), and the Turkmen-American Business Council spent $140,000 -- but on what, you have to look further, if you have the patience to dredge through the gadzillion data bases that are out there now, some of them which even let you run scripts off their servers overnight. We know that Kazakhstan seems to have bought itself a few think-tanks and buttered up a few members of Congress, judging from the enthusiasm for its chairing of the OSCE and the acceptance of the Astana summit proposal. The sad thing is, it hardly took any funds at all (a fraction of that $240,000, which was probably focused more on oil deals and such.)
I managed to put together a list of the Congressional Caucus on Central Asia and a few notes -- but I'm not 100 percent sure it is accurate and up to date (to the best of my knowledge, this is a list of people who signed up for this caucus in 2009 and remained in it this year, and also retained their seats after the November 2010 elections reported by the New York Times).
We don't hear much from CCCA -- but perhaps the secret is...there is no secret! Perhaps they haven't been very active as a caucus? Anybody?
Co-Chair Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) -- Lockheed Martin, $50,000; plans to run for House Armed Services Committee and push for military spending at home and abroad
Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
Robert Bishop (R-UT)
Madeleine Z. Bordallo (D-GU)
Danny Lee Burton (R-IN)
Joseph Crowley (D-NY)
Eliot L. Engel (D-NY)
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Walter William Herger (R-CA)
Michael M. Honda (D-CA) one of the few to write on the war in Afghanistan, reminding us that it is America's longest war in history $10,000 from Honeywell
Darrell E. Issa (R-CA) -- he is the new chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, an expert on cybersecurity, and one of the few Arab-Americans in Congress
Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)
Donald A. Manzullo (R-IL) $10,000 from Honeywell
Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY) -- slapped with a subpoena over Katrina charity funds
James P. Moran (D-VA) -- acceptance of campaign contributions from PMA Group, a lobbying
shop under federal investigation
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D-MP)
Brad Sherman (D-CA)
I'm not an expert on the Hill, so there are probably people out there who could crowd-source more information on these people relevant to Central Asia and OSCE. Comments welcome!
One obvious issue to watch is the probe by the congressional sub-committee on Manas. This has been taking awhile.
Issa is now going to chair the House committee that is above this sub-committee. Will that speed up or slow down this probe?
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