Magazine probes votes, holdings of N.H.'s Bradley
WASHINGTON -- US Representative Jeb Bradley, Republican of New Hampshire, voted to allow oil drilling in the Great Lakes and opposed several energy-related environmental conservation bills while holding nearly $1 million in oil and energy company shares, according to a Harper's report posted on the magazine's website Monday.
The report set off a spark in this fall's New Hampshire House race, where several Democratic contenders are vying to unseat Bradley, a two-term incumbent considered one of the more liberal Republicans in Congress and who rarely faces negative press.
According to the report, Bradley also voted against $15.5 million in energy conservation funding, voted against stricter penalties for industry price gouging, opposed a measure intended to curb no-bid government contracts for Iraqi oil operations while holding
In a statement issued Monday, Bradley declared he had ``never read such an inflammatory piece in all my life" and accused Harper's reporter Ken Silverstein of taking the voting record out of context. Bradley said he has ``continually" voted against big subsidies for corporate oil, voted for environmental protections, and introduced a bill allowing import of prescription drugs from Canada under certain conditions.
Jim Craig, the New Hampshire House minority leader and the best-known Democratic candidate taking on Bradley, used the report to slam the Republican.
``Three things seem to be going up: gas prices, prescription drug prices, and now we see there's a third thing -- Jeb Bradley's stock portfolio," Craig said. ``That's what I take from the piece."
The most recent University of New Hampshire poll had Bradley leading Craig by 28 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup.
Silverstein said the report on Bradley was intended to underscore the ethical issues that well-heeled politicians sometimes confront. ``Bradley is a very wealthy man, and it's not likely that he reads the stock tables before voting," Silverstein wrote. ``But his votes have, at times, tended to increase his personal net worth."
Andrew E. Smith, a University of New Hampshire political science professor, said Bradley ``is probably not going to be damaged by this" because voters don't believe he's beholden to corporate interests. Bradley's reputation is that of a pro-environment moderate, Smith said.
Dante Scala, a professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, said the Harper's story may be fodder for a Democratic attack ad, but little else. ``I didn't see any kind of smoking gun, so to speak," he said.
The League of Conservation Voters, a nonpartisan environmental watchdog group, gave Bradley a 44 percent rating in its last congressional scorecard, placing him just under the House average. Bradley was also ranked far ahead of the Republican average of 13 percent. 