'Dana Tyron Rohrabacher' (born
June 21,
1947, in
Coronado, California) is an
American politician, who has been a
Republican member of the
United States House of Representatives since 1989, currently representing .
Education
Rohrabacher graduated from Palos Verdes High School in
Palos Verdes Estates, California, attended Harbor Junior College, and received his
bachelor's degree in history from
California State University, Long Beach in 1969. He received his
master's degree in
American Studies from the
University of Southern California.
Tenure at the Reagan White House
Prior to his election to Congress in 1988, Rohrabacher served as Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. For seven years he was one of the President's senior speechwriters. During his tenure at the
White House, Rohrabacher played a leading role in the formulation of the
Reagan Doctrine. He also helped formulate President Reagan's Economic Bill of Rights, a package of economic reforms that the President introduced in a speech before the
Jefferson Memorial.
Congressional career
Rohrabacher presides over a meeting of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science Committee.
With Reagan soon leaving office, Rohrabacher left the Administration in 1988 to pursue the open House seat recently vacated by
Dan Lungren. With the fundraising help of friend
Oliver North, Rohrabacher was able to win the Republican primary and capture the seat, centered around northern coastal
Orange County. A friend and fellow White House aide,
Chris Cox, won a seat in the same election in southern Orange County. The pair remained close though Cox is now chairman of the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Rohrabacher was Chairman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the
House Science Committee from 1997 until January 2005, having received a two-year waiver to serve beyond the six-year term limit.
As a senior member of the
International Relations Committee, Rohrabacher led the effort to deny
Most Favored Nation trading status to the
People's Republic of China, citing that nation's dismal human rights record and opposition to democracy. His subcommittee assignments are East Asia and Pacific, and Middle East and South Asia.
Political positions
An earlier picture of Rohrabacher, from 105th Congress's pictorial directory
Illegal immigration
Rohrabacher is a staunch opponent of illegal immigration. He was an advocate for California's
Proposition 187, which sought to deny immigrants without proper documentation any government services, including education for their children. In 2004 he proposed a bill to withhold emergency room services to people who cannot prove their immigration status. The proposed bill was overwhelmingly defeated
[1].
On
March 30,
2006, Rohrabacher decried a guest worker proposal as "the foul odor that's coming out of the United States Senate." He said that if illegal immigrants who do many farm jobs were deported, "the millions of young men who are prisoners around our country can pick the fruits and vegetables. I say, let the prisoners pick the fruits."
[2][3]
Voting rights for DC residents
In January 2004, Rohrabacher proposed giving
Washington, D.C. residents the right to vote for congressional representation by treating them as
Maryland residents for the purpose of Congressional elections.
[4]
Opposition to current Ethiopian government
In March 2005, Rohrabacher introduced HR 1061, the American Property Claims Against Ethiopia Act, which would "prohibit United States assistance to the Federal Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia until the Ethiopian government returns all property of United States citizens". The bill was introduced by Rohrabacher at the behest of Gebremedhin Berhane, a former
Eritrean national. His son, Petros, was described by the ''Daily Pilot News'' of
Newport Beach, California as "one of Rep. Rohrabacher's surfing buddies".
On March 7, 2006, Rohrabacher introduced HR 4895, an amendment to the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, "to limit the provision of the United States military assistance and the sale, transfer, or licensing of United States military equipment or technology to Ethiopia."
[5]
Medical marijuana
Contrary to most
Republican Party Members of Congress, Rohrabacher is a supporter of medicinal use of
marijuana. He and
Maurice Hinchey have jointly offered amendment to spending bill that prohibit the
Department of Justice to prosecute patients who use marijuana for medical purpose.
[6] Rohrabacher said
conservatives should take
states' rights into consideration when considering the issue of marijuana.
Global warming
Rohrabacher does not believe that the current global warming is manmade. During a congressional hearing on
climate change on
February 8,
2007, Rohrabacher joked that previous warming cycles may have been caused by
carbon dioxide released into the
atmosphere by "
dinosaur flatulence."
[7]
War in Iraq
Rohrabacher has taken a strong pro-war stance.
Controversies
No Military Service
Rohrabacher was of draft age during Vietnam but avoided service. To help him earn a deferment he brought an X-ray of a hip he injured in high school football to his draft physical. Yet his own Website boasts of his continued surfing, when his crippled hip apparently gives him no trouble.
http://copleydc.com/copleydc_staff/Eckert/eckert_1-13-03.htm
Involvement with Jack Abramoff
Rohrabacher has been close friends of now-convicted lobbyist
Jack Abramoff since the mid-1980s. His relationship included the following:
★ In 1999 Rohrabacher went on an
Abramoff-funded trip to the Marshall Islands with
John Doolittle (R-CA),
Ken Calvert (R-CA), delegates of Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Islands and 8 staffers.
[8]
★ In 2000, Abramoff listed Rohrabacher as one of the his references on his loan application for the purchase of
SunCruz Casinos. "I don't remember it, but I would certainly have been happy to give him a good recommendation," Rohrabacher said in April 2005, when news reports first arose. "He's a very honest man."
[9]
★ In January 2002, Rohrabacher, took a six-day trip to Malaysia, accompanied by his wife and two of Abramoff’s then-partners at the firm
Greenberg Traurig. According to House records and to Rohrabacher's spokesman, the Malaysia trip focused on terrorism and trade issues. The spokesman called the trip "very positive."
[10]
★ In April 2005, as Abramoff became the target of a grand jury investigation, Rohrabacher said that "Jack has made some mistakes," "but he is not the dishonest, malevolent, arrogant, wheeler-dealer that people are portraying. He is a fine man."
[11]
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has come to the defense of disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff in the Washington Post and else, saying he's a good person who's been unjustly criticized. Rohrabacher admits to being a longtime friend of Abramoff. An actual quote from Rohrabacher is as follows:
"They're portraying Jack as a monster. I see him more as a good person who's done bad things and has to be punished for doing bad things.... I think that he obviously has done some things that are wrong and illegal and he's going to have to pay the price for it.”
Rohrabacher has publicly taken the position that he thinks that “... a lot of other things that have been characterized as corruption on the part of Abramoff are actually standard operating procedures for lobbying in Washington, D.C., arranging trips and things like that. So I think that he's received a lot of unjust criticism."
★ In July 2005, Rohrabacher said that he had been eating at ''Signatures'', a restaurant owned by Abramoff, at Abrmaoff's expense once or twice a month, and that the meals fell under the friendship exemption in House rules. He also said he tried to take Mr. Abramoff out regularly, paying for the lobbyist's meals in return. "Just because you are a member of Congress doesn't mean you have to give up your friendships," Rohrabacher said, adding that "it was dinner with a friend and I didn't think of it as a gift."
★ In December 2005, Rohrabacher again defended Abramoff, telling the ''Washington Post'': "I think he's been dealt a bad hand and the worst, rawest deal I've ever seen in my life. Words like bribery are being used to describe things that happened every day in Washington and are not bribes."
[12]
★ In March 2006, following Abramoff's guilty plea of fraud in the SunCruz case, Rohrabacher was the sole member of Congress who wrote the judge in the case to urge leniency in sentencing. "I think when he is being punished for the things he did that were wrong, some of the things that he did that were right and admirable in the past should be taken into consideration," Rohrabacher said in an interview. In his letter to the judge, Rohrabacher described "a far different Jack than the profit-seeking megalomaniac portrayed in the press." "Jack was a selfless patriot for most of the time I knew him," the congressman wrote, recalling his friend as an ardent anti-Communist during the Cold War.
[13]
Involvement with Afghanistan and the Taliban
Rohrabacher had a history of involvement in
Afghanistan dating back to the
Cold War, when he openly supported the groups that were fighting troops from the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
[14]. In late 1988, Rohrabacher went to Afghanistan:
:After I left the White House and was elected to Congress, but before I was sworn into Congress, I knew I had that two months between November and January to do things that I could never do once I was elected to Congress. I chose to hike into Afghanistan as part of a small
Mujahedin unit and to engage in a battle against the Russian and
communist forces near and around the city of
Jalalabad.
[15]
In the November/December 1996 issue of ''Washington Report on Middle East Affairs'', Rohrabacher was reported as saying that the Taliban were not
terrorists or revolutionaries, that they would develop a disciplined society that would leave no room for terrorists, and that the Taliban posed no threat to the United States.
[16]
However, in a
September 11,
1998 editorial in the ''
The Washington Post'', Rohrabacher strongly rebuked the Taliban for providing refuge to Osama bin Laden, mass killings of
Shi'ites and ethnic
Uzbeks,
Turks, and
Tajiks, and restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and children:
It has been no secret that bin Laden has been sheltered by the Taliban. The Clinton administration was mute while one of the most violent anti-Western Muslim sects spilled into Afghanistan from their Pakistan-based "religious schools" and took control of the capital. We remained paralyzed while they moved to destroy moderate Muslim forces. While administration officials expressed concern of the Taliban's complete denial of rights for women, it was little more than lip service. Even modest support from the United States for moderate Muslim forces in Afghanistan and serious political pressure on Pakistan could have thwarted the takeover of this strategically important country by these militant extremists. The danger of the spread of fanaticism expressed by the newly independent republics of Central Asia was smugly ignored.
During the summer of 2001, Rohrabacher made a trip to
Qatar that was paid for by the Islamic Institute and the Government of Qatar, according to Rohrabacher’s financial disclosure forms. While in Qatar, Rohrabacher,
Grover Norquist, and Khaled Saffuri met with Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah
Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil. Wakil reportedly asked for help in increasing the amount of foreign aid sent by the
United States to
Afghanistan, apparently in exchange for U.S. oil company
UNOCAL being allowed to construct of an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. If Rohrabacher was conducting
diplomacy, he was in violation of the
Logan Act, which prohibits citizens from doing so if not in an official capacity. Rohrabacher told wire service reporters who were present in
Doha, Qatar at the time that he had discussed a “peace plan” with the Taliban. But Norquist, a close associate of Rohrabacher, said that the meeting happened accidentally and that it included Rohrabacher yelling at them about blowing up the
Buddhist statues in Afghanistan.
[17]
The Taliban later announced in
Kabul that it had rejected what it considered were unreasonable demands by the U.S. side. Rohrabacher’s staff would not answer questions about the Taliban talks.
[18]
After the
September 11, 2001 attacks, Rohrabacher claimed that the attacks were due to incompetence on the part of the Clinton administration.
[19]
Payment for 30-year-old screenplay
On
November 4,
2005, The ''
Los Angeles Times'' reported that Rohrabacher "used his influence to open doors in Washington for a Hollywood producer pitching a television show after the producer paid him a $23,000 option on a nearly 30 year old screenplay." The producer, Joseph Medawar, has since been indicted on fraud charges by the FBI and has pled not guilty. The question is whether the producer paid him the money for the screenplay or if the money was for the introductions to congressional and federal officials conducted by Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher claims that the introductions were done in good faith and were nothing that was not done regularly for legitimate causes, and that the introductions have only become an issue because of Joseph Medawar's misdeeds.
In May 2006, Rohrabacher, through his press secretary, announced that he will return the $23,000. The decision was made public shortly before Medawar took responsibility in a United States District Court for bilking about $3.4 million from about 50 investors.
[20]
Wishing death on the families of opponents
On April 17, 2007, while defending the Bush Administration's program of
extraordinary rendition during a House hearing on transatlantic relations, Rohrabacher said:
Rohrabacher was subsequently interrupted by protesters wearing orange jumpsuits who were removed from the gallery.
Torture
On
April 17,
2007, during a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing, Rohrabacher vigorously defended the US's policy of
extraordinary rendition, noting imprisoning and torturing one innocent person was a fair price to pay for locking up 50 terrorists who would "go out and plant a bomb and kill 20,000 people."
[1] For this comment, he was named
Countdown with Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" on
April 25.
Family
In August 1997, Rohrbacher married Orange County political operative (and fellow
surfer)
Rhonda Carmony. On
April 27,
2004, he and his wife became parents to triplets.
Libertarianism
Rohrabacher was an influential activist in the radical
anarcho-capitalist movement, starting from about
1969,
[21] though he drifted towards the mainstream along with
Charles Koch, the billionaire who helped fund his political campaigns.
He worked for a while in the early 1970s as an editorial writer for ''The Register'' (today called ''
The Orange County Register'')
newspaper in
Santa Ana, California, then a conservative newspaper with a libertarian bent.
[22]
In addition to surfing, Rohrabacher is an amateur musician who in the late 1980s appeared, alongside
Chris Cox, to sing at the Orange County Press Club's musical lampooning annual political events.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Rohrabacher was influenced by the anarcho-capitalist ideas of
Robert LeFevre, who had moved his Freedom School to
Santa Ana, California, renaming it
Rampart College.
[23] Rohrabacher would appear at various meetings and conferences, including the "Left-Right Festival of Mind Liberaton" in 1969.
[24] Rohrabacher would often play the four-string
banjo and sing his original
libertarian-themed songs, including "Individual Man": "I don't own nobody. Nobody does own me. I'm just an individual man, just want to be free...."
2006 election
In November 2006, Rohrabacher faced Democrat
Jim Brandt (neither had any opponent in the June primary). The two faced each other in the 2004 elections, with Rohrabacher
defeating Brandt by a 62.0%-32.5% margin (a Libertarian and a Green split the remaining 5.5%).
Trivia
Rohrabacher was one of five members of Congress to have a cameo in the 2003
American Civil War film ''
Gods and Generals''. Rohrabacher portrayed a
Union officer.
[25]
References
1. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/24/rohrabacher-terrorists/
External links
★
U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher 'official House site'
★
★
Federal Election Commission v Dana Rohrabacher campaign finance reports and data
★
★
On the Issues — Dana Rohrabacher issue positions and quotes
★
Extraordinary Rendition Hearing
★
OpenSecrets.org — Dana Rohrabacher campaign contributions
★
Project Vote Smart — Representative Dana T. Rohrabacher (CA) profile
★
SourceWatch Congresspedia — Dana Rohrabacher profile
★
Washington Post v Congress Votes Database: Dana Rohrabacher voting record
★
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher 'official campaign site'
★
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