McCain's Land Swap

It isn't a wife swap. It isn't even a land shark. It's a land swap.

John McCain championed some legislation that made it acceptable for a rancher to trade rural, remote land that still had trees and wildlife on it for high value federally-owned land that is immediately ready for development. The difference between those two, if it is not immediately obvious, is that one costs a lot less to build on than the other.

The problem here is that John McCain went to great pains to see this legislation passed, and the lobbyists that went to bat for the rancher included several former McCain staffers, and McCain campaign contributors benefited a great deal.

From Washington Post:

Betts is among a string of donors who have benefited from McCain-engineered land swaps. In 1994, the senator helped a lobbyist for land developer Del Webb Corp. pursue an exchange in the Las Vegas area, according to the Center for Public Integrity. McCain sponsored two bills, in 1991 and 1994, sought by donor Donald R. Diamond that yielded the developer thousands of acres in trade for national parkland.

In the late 1990s, McCain promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates.

Oh my. So McCain's done this several times. I wonder if the press will actually keep digging on this.