Alan Grayson

Alan Grayson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 8th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2009
Preceded by	Ric Keller
Personal details
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse	Lolita Grayson
Children	Skye, Star, Sage, Storm, Stone
Residence	Orlando, Florida
Alma mater	Harvard University (A.B.) John F. Kennedy School of Government (Master of Public Policy) Harvard Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Attorney

Alan Mark Grayson (born March 13, 1958) is an American attorney and businessman who is currently serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 8th congressional district. A progressive Democrat, Grayson defeated four-term incumbent Republican Ric Keller in the 2008 congressional election. Grayson recently gained attention when he said, from the floor of the House, the Republicans' health care plan was to have sick patients "die quickly." Previously he had gained attention for exposing Iraq war profiteers who were defrauding the government and for criticizing the Federal Reserve's secrecy in disbursing bailout funds.

Education and early career

Grayson was born in the Bronx, New York and grew up in the tenements. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science and worked his way through Harvard University, graduating in three years, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He then began graduate studies and simultaneously, in the next four years, earned a law degree with honors from Harvard Law School, a masters in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and completed the course work and passed the general exams for a Ph.D in government.

After writing his master's thesis on gerontology, he founded the Alliance for Aging Research, and served as an officer of the organization for more than 20 years.

Grayson was employed as a law clerk at the Colorado Supreme Court in 1983, and at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals from 1984 to 1985, where he worked with such judges as Abner Mikva, Robert Bork, and two judges who later joined the U.S. Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. He was an associate at the Washington D.C. firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson for five years, where he specialized in contract law. In 1991 he founded the law firm Grayson, Kubli which concentrated on government contract law. He was a lecturer at the George Washington University government contracts program and a frequent speaker on the topic.

Grayson also founded and was the first President of IDT Corporation, a publicly traded billion-dollar telecommunications company.

In recent years, Grayson specialized in war profiteer and whistleblower cases aimed at Iraq war contractors that had overbilled the U.S. government by tens of millions of dollars. One such contractor, Custer Battles, billed the government $15 milion for inspecting non-existent civilian flights at Baghdad Airport, and $10 million on a time and materials contract that had cost just 3.5 million, and received payment in newly printed cash direct from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. While pursuing the whistleblower cases, Grayson worked from a home office in the Orlando house where he lived with his wife and five children. In 2006, a Wall Street Journal reporter noted that Grayson was a vehement critic of the war in Iraq and that his car was "emblazoned" with bumper stickers such as "Bush lied, people died".

Electoral history

In 2006, Grayson made his first foray into electoral politics, and lost the 2006 Democratic primary for Florida's 8th Congressional District to Charlie Stuart, a prominent local businessman and center-right Democrat. Stuart went on to lose the general election to incumbent Republican Congressman Ric Keller.

In late 2007, Grayson announced that he would run again for the 8th District seat, and again faced Stuart in the primary. During the primary, his campaign retained the services of Bill Hillsman, an advertising executive whose previous political clients include the U.S. Senate campaigns of Democrats Paul Wellstone and Ned Lamont, the gubernatorial campaigns of Independents Jesse Ventura and Kinky Friedman, and the 2000 presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. Hillsman's first ad for Grayson, entitled "Case Closed", focused on Grayson's fight against military contractor fraud, dramatizing the amounts of money involved with a suitcase containing $1 million in cash and an airplane hangar that could be filled with the $9 billion in taxpayer dollars allegedly stolen by contractor fraud in Iraq. The ad spread over the Internet via various liberal blogs, including the widely read FireDogLake and The Huffington Post, and was deemed very successful. A second ad, "Empty", also referenced contractor fraud, this time listing faulty products, such as empty fire extinguishers and defective parachutes, that were sold to the government. This, too, was deemed a very successful ad. Other ads produced by Hillsman for the campaign included "Important Part", in which Grayson blasted Keller for voting against an appropriation for prosthetic limbs for veterans; and "Taxpayer Robbery", which likened the loosening of regulations on the financial industry and the resulting 2008 bank bailout to an armed robbery.

In the August 26, 2008 Democratic primary, Grayson prevailed by an unexpectedly large margin, receiving 48.5% of the vote. Stuart distantly trailed with 27.5%, with three other candidates splitting the remaining 24%. During the general election campaign, Grayson maintained a consistent lead over Keller, who had barely eked out renomination in the Republican primary over attorney Todd Long after breaking a voluntary term limits pledge. This, combined with the erasure of the Republican Party's narrow advantage in voter registration in the district, helped propel Grayson to victory. On Election Day, he received 172,854 votes, or 52%, to Keller's 159,490 votes, or 48%. Although Keller won three out of four counties in the district, Grayson won by a margin of 55% to 45% in Orange County, home to Orlando and by far the largest county in the district.

Grayson is the only second Democrat to represent his district since its formation after the 1970 census (it was the 5th District from 1973 to 1993 and has been the 8th District since 1993). The district's most notable congressman, Bill McCollum, held the seat from 1983 to 2001, before retiring in order to make an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate; he is now Florida's attorney general. The only other Democrat to represent this district, Bill Gunter, gave it up after only one term to make an unsuccessful run for the Democratic Senate nomination in 1974.

Although the Florida 8th district was historically a Republican district, Grayson was elected as a progressive Democrat, and is a Vice Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Congressional career

On January 13, 2009, during his first hearing as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, Grayson questioned Federal Reserve System Vice Chairman Donald Kohn on the disposition of the $1.2 trillion in taxpayer funds that the Fed had lent as part of the 2008 bank bailout, asking how much money had been given to specific institutions, such as Credit Suisse and Citibank, and what collateral had been secured in return. Kohn disclaimed specific knowledge of which specific firms had received funds, but went on to state that he did not feel that this was information that should be available to the general public, as firms might refuse bailout funds if it became generally known that they were receiving them. Grayson replied, "Has that ever happened? Have people ever said we won't take your $150 billion because people might find out about it?" He went on to question the authority of the Fed to make such a decision without consulting Congress. The exchange was posted on YouTube, receiving more than 50,000 views in the first week after posting. After the exchange received attention from various national media outlets, Grayson was the subject of an interview by Salon.com writer Glenn Greenwald, in which he went into greater depth in his criticism of both the bailout and the Federal Reserve's secrecy on the subject.

On March 23, 2009, in response to public outrage over the AIG bonus payments controversy, Grayson joined with fellow freshman Democrat Jim Himes of Connecticut to introduce the Grayson-Himes Pay for Performance Act, legislation to require that all bonuses paid by companies that had received funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to be based on performance. The bill was co-sponsored by eight other members of the House. On March 26, the bill was approved by the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 38-22. On April 1, the bill was passed by the full House of Representatives by a vote of 247-171. The bill is viewed by some as giving Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

On May 5, 2009, in a Financial Services Committee question and answer session with Inspector General of the Federal Reserve Elizabeth A. Coleman, Grayson asked about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. The Inspector General responded that she does not know and is not tracking where this money is. The exchange was posted on YouTube, receiving nearly 3,000,000 views in the first few months after posting.

Grayson is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, consisting of 80 progressive House members in addition to independent Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders and Democratic New Mexico Senator Tom Udall.

Grayson was ranked as the 12th-wealthiest member of Congress based on financial disclosure forms with a minimum net worth of $31.12 million, according to Roll Call.ref name=WSJblogs> Who is Alan Grayson Anyway, Wall Street Journal blogs, 2009-10-01</ref>

Health care policy debate

On September 29, 2009, Grayson made a speech regarding health care proposals in the U.S. House. During it he said, "The Republican health care plan is this: 'Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.'" His remarks drew angry and immediate calls for an apology from Republicans. Longtime Republican Congressman Jimmy Duncan called Grayson's speech "the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I've ever heard made on this floor". Grayson's comments drew sharp criticism from the National Republican Congressional Committee. NRCC spokesman Andy Sere said, "This is an unstable man who has come unhinged. The depths to which Alan Grayson will sink to defend his indefensible comments know no bounds." Grayson responded the next day from the House floor, saying "I would like to apologize: I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America." He cited a September 2009 Harvard study that found 44,000 Americans die each year due to being uninsured. Grayson later apologized to the Anti-Defamation League(ADL) for his generic use of "holocaust", a word which many American Jews including the ADL, reserve for the discussion of the more than six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. Grayson told the ADL "In no way did I mean to minimize the Holocaust, I regret the choice of words, and I will not repeat it."

On September 30, during an interview on CNN's news program The Situation Room, Grayson added to his criticism of Congressional Republicans, calling them "nattering nabobs of negativism" — borrowing a phrase written for Spiro Agnew by William Safire to describe the media — and "foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who think they can dictate policy to America by being stubborn" despite having lost the election. He argued that on the issue of health care "the Republicans have been insulting … [and] disserving America," and that "some thoughtful opposition" has been missing in the debate. He responded to criticism of his comments about the Republicans by saying he was speaking "the honest truth", because he contends that Republican leaders have offered no feasible counter-proposal to that of the Democrats, and that when the minority is not compromising and thereby stopping progress, few alternatives exist from which to draw conclusions. During the interview, Republican strategist Alex Castellanos responded to Grayson with four initiatives that he believes Congressional Republicans are now proposing or have previously proposed: (1) enacting tort reform, (2) expanding health insurance portability, (3) permitting consumers to shop for health insurance across state lines, and (4) ensuring access to health care regardless of pre-existing health conditions. Grayson maintained his position that Congressional Republicans have failed to offer a feasible plan, and in his rebuttal to the second and fourth points said "What you just described is the Democratic plan. You think you can steal the emperor's clothes that way?" On October 1, 2009, Grayson referred to Congressional Republicans as "'no' mongers" and added, "They've got 'no' answers for anything."

Committee assignments

• Committee on Financial Services
  • Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
• Committee on Science and Technology
  • Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
  • Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics

See also

• United States House of Representatives elections in Florida, 2008#District 8

External links

• Congressman Alan Grayson Official U.S. House website
• Alan Grayson for U.S. Congress Official campaign website
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• The People vs. the Profiteers David Rose, Vanity Fair, 2007-11
• 30 Second TV Spot Shakes Up A Congressional Campaign In Orlando -- Meet Alan Grayson Howie Klein, Huffington Post, 2008-07-27
• Neil Cavuto and Congressman Grayson - Congressman Grayson interviewed by Neil Cavuto of Fox News
• Grayson's Voting record on GovTrack.us