The Southern Highland Reader

GSMNP–Congressman Heath Shuler recently helped secure a $13 million down-payment from the federal government to help put an end to the nearly-seven-decade controversy over a road once planned along the north shore of Lake Fontana.

The payment, part of a larger, undisclosed sum, would compensate Swain County for the federal government’s choice not to build the road, which was promised in 1943.

National Parks Traveler writer Danny Bernstein gives a history of the controversy here.

Here’s an excerpt:

The North Shore Road issue was revived again in 2001 when former Congressman Charles Taylor, a Republican from western North Carolina, obtained $16 million for further construction of the North Shore Road. This set off a process that looked into the environmental impact of a 35-mile road. The National Park Service held public input forums in various locations around the Smokies and accepted comments from anyone in the U.S. on various ways to resolve the 1943 agreement. Thousands of pages were generated, reviewed, and discussed. Descendants of the original settlers were the only ones who wanted a road in the park. Almost all comments were against the road and for a financial settlement with Swain County, where Fontana Dam is located, one of the four parties to the original agreement.

In December 2007, the Department of the Interior made a decision that officially called for a yet-to-be-specified multi-million-dollar monetary settlement to Swain County instead of a road through one of the most pristine and untouched areas in the East. Though the park is now protected and the North Shore Road will never be built, Congress still has to approve the funds to settle the 1943 agreement.

REGIONAL–The Hendersonville Times News, along with the Knoxville News Sentinel, have followed closely 11th District Congressman Heath Shuler‘s real estate misadventure involving the TVA in east Tennessee.

The Times News warned early on that even the appearance of influence-peddling in real estate matters would recall memories of Shuler’s predecessor, Republican Charles Taylor.

In a Friday editorial, the Times News “wraps the thing up neatly, and says Shuler’s damage in this case is self-inflicted.

Here’s the lead:

ASHEVILLE–11th District Rep. Heath Shuler said mildly nice things about Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a speech yesterday in Asheville, and the result was a comical fit of pique by a Republican National Committee spokesman.

In general, Shuler suggested that the criticism of Pelosi might be, oh, shall we say, exaggerated.

In response, RNC spokesman Andy Seré said:

“Heath Shuler is the one who’s ‘misunderstood’. He may call himself a Blue Dog, but Shuler’s lavish Pelosi-praise has revealed him to be little more than a lap dog for the most liberal speaker in U.S. history. She may have let him off the leash this weekend in a vain attempt to salvage his re-election bid, but his political affair with Nancy Pelosi is destined to land him in the doghouse with Western North Carolinians.”

Story from the Asheville Citizen-Times
Story from the Raleigh News and Observer

REGIONAL–Widely-read Asheville political blog Scrutiny Hooligans has a look at the territory west of Balsam Gap — considered oh-so-mysterious by many Ashevillians – in this post.

Tom Sullivan is the author.

An excerpt:

There are Democrats out there. Not hemp-wearing Asheville Democrats, maybe, but Democrats, and more left-of-center than some here believe. At 10 a.m. on a weekday ahead of the 2006 election, it was a delight to find twenty people gathered at a Murphy campaign headquarters to discuss get-out-the-vote efforts. At a meeting this year after one of the votes on the stimulus bill, Democratic county chairs from across the district gave Shuler’s staff a tongue lashing over his no vote.

NC-11 is, on the whole, a moderately conservative one, with about 35 percent Republican registration and some leftover Reagan Democrats on the rolls. In 2008, Obama won only Buncombe county and Jackson county, home of Western Carolina University. He narrowly lost Madison and Swain. Shuler is a good fit for the district, whether Buncombe progressives like it or not. But it might be strategic for the congressman to show them a little more love whether or not they understand how things are done west of the Balsams. His vote on Saturday night did him damage that only a vote for final passage of the health bill might repair. Might.

Read the post here.

NATIONAL–11th District congressman Heath Shuler has been cleared by the House ethics committee of any wrongdoing in a Tennessee land deal, according to the Washington Post.

An excerpt from the Post:

According to a letter sent to Shuler Wednesday by the ethics committee, that IG investigation “could not find any evidence that you violated any ethics rules.” And after its own “thorough review,” the committee said it “has determined that your actions in these matters were not improper in any way and did not violate House rules.”

Read the piece here.

NATIONAL–11th District congressman Heath Shuler is the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation over a land-swap controversy in Tennessee, according to the Washington Post, which acquired a leaked memo that discloses the investigation.

Here’s the Post’s lead:

House ethics investigators are reviewing an allegation of “preferential treatment” in a land deal involving Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), a former Washington Redskins quarterback, according to a July committee document obtained by The Washington Post.

Read the Post story here.

The Hendersonville Times News and the Mountain Xpress were the first to report the story in our area.

Our series of posts shown to the left outline the details of the controversy.

REGIONAL-The smidgen of Tennessee lakefront property at the heart of a controversy involving 11th District congressman Heath Shuler was listed as a Shuler asset in 2007, but not 2008, reports the Hendersonville Times News.

An excerpt:

Shuler, who went into real estate development in East Tennessee after his career as a quarterback at the University of Tennessee and the NFL, claimed ownership of between $9 million and $42 million in real estate assets in his 2007 financial disclosure statement. The largest asset was the Cove at Blackberry Ridge near Knoxville, which became the subject of a TVA inspector general’s report into whether the agency was showing favoritism in granting water access development permits.

The entire story.

KNOXVILLE-11th District Congressman Heath Shuler on Wednesday denied knowledge of the working of a land deal between the Tennessee Valley Authority — over which he has some oversight in Washington — and a land development company in east Tennessee in which holds interest.

The Tennessean’s lead:

North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler said Wednesday that he did not contact the Tennessee Valley Authority while the agency was considering a water access deal that was key to a housing development in which he was an investor.

The Waynesville, N.C., Democrat’s statement appears to contradict the conclusion in a report by TVA’s inspector general released Tuesday, and it further clouds a complex and politically charged issue.

The Tennessean’s story is here.

REGIONAL/NATIONAL–The Knoxville News Sentinel reported on Tuesday that the story about congressman Heath Shuler’s involvement in a small Tennessee land swap with the Tennessee Valley Authority isn’t dead.

From my earlier post on the subject:

The swap essentially provides water access at Watts Bar Resevoir to a [housing] development called The Cove at Blackberry Ridge, in exchange for an equal amount of shoreline elsewhere on the same lake and $15,000. Shuler is an investor in the Cove at Blackberry Ridge.

Shuler has ties to the development company, and sits on a committee that exercises oversight over the TVA. This suggests the possibility of conflict of interest, although no evidence of such has been presented. When I posted about it a year ago, it struck me as much ado about not-so-much, but the News Sentinel reported in its Tuesday that a sealed report on the matter has been forwarded to the house ethics committee.

The News Sentinel, by the way, has sued to have the report made public.

Shuler More Reading … Asheville Citizen-Times Talking Points Memo Washington Post

REGIONAL/NATIONAL–A small, secretive and oddly fundamentalist Washington group called, alternately “The Fellowship” and “The Family” has been much in the news lately, for a variety of reasons.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada Sen. John Ensign, philanderers, are both involved — that’s one reason.

Another is the release of Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, which has gotten press.

The group has been around for decades, and the most public thing it does is put on the yearly National Prayer Breakfast. But it also maintains a residence in Washington, called C Street, where a few congressmen and senators rent apartments and which serves as a meeting place. Owned by a foundation affiliated with the Family, C Street is officially registered as a church.

A christian magazine called theworld.com — echoed by John Boyle at the Asheville Citizen-Times — is reporting today that 11th District Congressman Heath Shuler makes his Washington residence at C Street.

Some info:

From a National Public Radio story about Sharlet’s book:

Founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR’s New Deal, the evangelical group’s views on religion and politics are so singular that some other Christian-right organizations consider them heretical …

The group’s approach to religion, Sharlet says, is based on “a sort of trickle-down fundamentalism,” which holds that the wealthy and powerful, if they “can get their hearts right with God … will dispense blessings to those underneath them.”

Members of the group ardently support free markets, in which, they believe, God’s will operates directly through Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”

The Family was founded in 1935 by a minister named Abraham Vereide after, he claimed, he had a vision in which God came to him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation.

More, including the radio piece, here.

REGIONAL-Roll Call has been “the newspaper of capitol hill” for over a half-century. Its “Heard on the Hill” column (subscription required) is bemused by our Congressman Heath Shuler’s dedication to fitness guru Tony Horton:

Congress Gets Ripped. Fiscal hawk Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Blue Dog Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) have reputations as budget-cutters. But it turns out federal spending isn’t the only thing the two want to see get cut: Both plan to work out in the House gym with fitness guru Tony Horton, whose super-tough “P90X” regime (“get absolutely ripped in 90 days!” the exercise DVD promises) they follow.

Shuler

Horton

Heard on the Hill hears Horton will be putting Ryan, Shuler and a few other lawmakers through their paces during an early morning sweat session on Friday.

Ryan tells HOH he’s excited to meet Horton, whose DVDs he’s been following since December. “I feel like I know him,” says Ryan, who laughed when HOH asked if he was “ripped,” but admitting he’s kept his body fat from 6 percent to 8 percent thanks to the program. “Some people have financial gurus. Some people have spiritual gurus. I have a fitness guru and his name is Tony Horton.”

Shuler and Ryan do the workouts together; Ryan says Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is also a fan, and that he’s gotten Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) into it, too.

And Horton’s program is intense enough to impress even a pro. “I have worked out personally and professionally for many years,” says Shuler, who as a former NFL player is no stranger to grueling workouts. “P90X is the one of my most challenging and extreme exercise experiences yet.”

HOH is content to take their word for it.

REGIONAL–The Smoky Mountain News‘s Julia Merchant has a look at the voting inclinations of 11th District congressman Heath Shuler.

Shuler, a first-term Democrat, recently climbed to the top of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s no-no list by voting against the stimulus, among other things. He served as whip for the Blue Dog Democrats in 2008.

Shuler can afford to appease his rural, conservative district with these votes, Merchant points out, because of the way the numbers break out in congress — the Dems have a big majority.

Here’s an excerpt:

As testament to the “different breed [of Democrat]” idea, Shuler won the 11th Congressional District in the last election by a landslide – but every county except Buncombe and Jackson voted for John McCain in the presidential race.

Not surprisingly, Shuler garners support from a number of Republicans as well. He was the first candidate in years able to do so, said Haywood County Commissioner Kevin Ensley, a Republican.

“The district is conservative, and when I was watching the Democrats fill the candidates, they’d get these liberals from Asheville and Hendersonville,” Ensley said. “When they got a conservative Democrat, I knew they’d do real well.”

REGIONAL/STATEWIDE–11th District congressman Heath Shuler announced Monday night that he will not seek Senator Richard Burr’s seat in next year’s mid-term elections.

If he’s sticking with congress for a while, it makes you wonder why he’s stirring up trouble with the Speaker.

Heath Shuler

STATEWIDE/NATIONAL–According to Politico.com, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, like her father, is a famous personal list-maker.

She keeps track of favors, of people who are on her good side, and of people on her bad side.

And apparently 11th District congressman Heath Shuler has worked his way to the top of the “bad” list, surpassing even Rush Limbaugh, who Pelosi considers beneath contempt.

Here’s part of what Politico.com wrote:

No Democrat has done quite so much in so short a time to arouse Pelosi’s disdain as the failed-Redskins-quarterback-turned-ambitious-North-Carolina-congressman.

The conservative, anti-abortion Shuler would have made the list for voting against both bank bailout bills and the stimulus package, but the way he went about it didn’t help; Shuler told an audience back home that “House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed” on the $787 billion package.

The thing that riles Pelosi most, according to several House aides, is that she believes Shuler’s motives are as much political as they are ideological — and that he’s picking a fight with her to position himself for a run against Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) next year.

Unless Shuler is planning a long House career, picking a fight with Pelosi may indeed have its advantages: His 2006 opponent, incumbent GOP Rep. Charles Taylor, scored points by portraying Shuler as a Pelosi acolyte.

“I don’t know if Shuler is talking without thinking or if he’s just making the calculation that distancing himself from Pelosi is never a bad thing to do,” said a senior House leadership aide.

Read the whole piece here.

NATIONAL–This one goes back a few days, but Andrea Verykoukis at the Progressive Pulse blog had choice words for 11th District Congressman Heath Shuler after Shuler voted against the current administration’s stimulus package. Verykoukis went heavy on the football terminology, so why shouldn’t we follow her lead (block)?

She argued that Shuler’s point that he voted with the wishes of his “conservative district” was a little watery, and she went on to quote the Asheville Citizen-Times when it begged to differ — although the paper somehow avoided criticizing Shuler by name.

Here’s a quote from Verykoukis:

Is this guy for real? He’s a Democrat, for God’s sake, and he’s been in Washington for the past two years, and he’s really going to try to pretend the GOP hasn’t been spending like drunken sailors? He’s going to get fiscally responsible with the party that has spent $3 trillion on unnecessary wars and tax breaks for the wealthy that, I might add, most assuredly did not help anyone? Seriously?

Read the whole piece here.

Meanwhile … Shuler’s vote is a hot topic of discussion at MountainXpress.

WASHINGTON-11th District Congressman Heath Shuler was one of 11 Democrats to join all Republicans in voting against the Obama administration’s $819 billion stimulus bill yesterday in Washington.

The bill passed 244-188.

Shuler is comfortable in and apparently well-suited to his role as a blue dog Democrat, and his votes against bailouts for big banks and the big three resonate with much of his rural constituency. Still, Shuler will be criticized for his departure from what is a broadly popular stimulus package, and some constituents will worry that by venturing from the party line too assertively — particularly in instances like this in which the outcome is clear — he could damage his influence in the new administration.

Here’s a story from the Hendersonville Times News.

STATEWIDE/NATIONAL–While the house approved a $14 billion bailout program for automakers Wednesday night by a 237-170 vote and sent it on for senate consideration, NC lawmakers weren’t feeling so charitable. The state delegation was 14-9 against.

11th District congressman Heath Shuler voted against.

Senator Libby Dole voted for the bailout, Senator Richard Burr against.

Here’s how the NC congressional delegation voted.

How about the impact of the industry’s struggles on mountain dealers and mechanics? Here’s a story from the Smoky Mountain News.

And another from the Hendersonville Times News.