Will Bunch has written a piece on Rick Santorum for the December/January issue of Mother Jones. The main thrust of the article is that Rick, while outspoken on many social issues, actually spends a large amount of his time and energy helping corporate America. Rick also seems to concentrate his help on those corporations that have given him contributions, like Walmart and Outback Steakhouse.
One interesting revelation from the piece is that Rick has voted by absentee ballot (presumably from Virginia) in 14 of the last 21 elections. Here's an excerpt:
Indeed, while Santorum has become perhaps the Senate’s most outspoken member on hot-button social issues such as abortion and gay rights, much of his day-to-day work involves matters of interest to corporate America. This year has been typically busy. Santorum authored a bill that would relax overtime regulations and exempt numerous businesses from minimum-wage rules, a move particularly dear to the restaurant industry (thus the Outback Steakhouses event). He sponsored measures aiding campaign contributors, such as the private weather company AccuWeather (which would benefit from Santorum’s proposed privatization of the National Weather Service); the fire-sprinkler industry; beer brewers; and the tomato grower Procacci Brothers, which is being accused of migrant-housing violations in Florida. And he has been pushing hard for Wal-Mart’s agenda, which includes tort reform and changes in overtime rules—Wal-Mart faces a slew of lawsuits over sex discrimination and alleged overtime violations—as well as reform of charitable giving laws and a permanent repeal of the estate tax, which would benefit the billionaire heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Wal-Mart’s political action committee gave $10,000, the maximum allowable PAC donation, to Santorum in 2004, plus another $10,000 to Santorum’s PAC.
