Texas Congressman Pete Sessions Held Fundraisers At Vegas Strip Club
By Vince Leibowitz on Jul 30, 2008 in Texas Congressional Delegation
I can’t say I’m surprised to learn that Texas Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Dallas) has been holding fundraisers at Forty Deuce, a strip club in Las Vegas described as “even more back-alley than the original that inspired it, discreetly hidden just off the casino floor.”
From MarketPlace via AmericaBLOG:
In the past three years, unions and corporate executives contributed more than $77 million to these leadership PACs according to Federal Election Commission reports. Lobbyists kicked in millions more.
Working together, Notzen and Pete Sessions run one of the more successful PACs on Capitol Hill and last spring, Notzen’s company planned an event for Pete Session’s PAC in Vegas: a fundraiser at Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce.
Sessions: That’s right, we do a Las Vegas fundraiser every year and not only raise money, but see Las Vegas. It’s a beautiful town.
Henn: Forty Deuce is a strip club.
Sessions: You know, I’ve never seen that. It is what I would call a burlesque show where there’s a woman who comes out and has a dress on… Uh, she never get’s naked. There’s no nudity, there’s no nudity in there.
This is how the club’s owner, Ivan Kane, describes his brand of burlesque.
Ivan Kane: The key component would be to have girls who were dancers taking their clothes off, not just girls taking their clothes off.
Sessions spent more than $5,000 at Kane’s club that night in March, according to federal disclosures. Those reports show Sessions spent another $2,100 on his hotel.
Officially, Pete Sessions’ leadership PAC picked up the tab, but just days before the party at Forty Deuce, casino interests donated $5,000 to his PAC. Payday lenders threw in another $2,500.
Some might quibble with the Congressman’s taste, but Sessions and the other attendees say the event was tame. It was all fully disclosed and none of it violated a single law. In fact, Pete Sessions’ party in Vegas was cheap in comparison to what other members of Congress routinely spend on golfing or skiing or chartered jets.
Sessions: It’s hard for me to know what is normal or regular any more. I mean I’ve seen people that do things half way around the world.
In fact, Sessions runs one of the least wasteful PACs in Washington. In three years, he raised more than a million dollars and given away more $800,000 to colleagues running in elections. Other leadership PACs don’t do nearly as well.
Since 2005, these accounts have raised more than $188 million, but the lion’s share of that cash was never spent on federal election campaigns. Instead, more than $100 million was spent other things like consultants or staff or just having a great time.
Seriously, Mr. Morality, Pete Sessions, has been having fund-raisers in a strip club. How is that for irony?
Well, you have to go where your constituents are …