Posted on 07/23/2012 9:33:15 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
Next year could be a banner one for Mormons in the nation’s capital, with their numbers and influence likely to grow whether or not Mitt Romney is elected president.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) could raise the number of Mormons in the upper chamber to seven, should he and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) win in November.
Depending on who controls the Senate, it will have either have a Mormon Senate majority leader in Harry Reid (D-Nev.) or a Mormon president pro tempore and Finance Committee Chairman in Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
“I wouldn’t be surprised, especially in a Republican administration, to see members of my faith well represented,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a rising Tea Party star who is Mormon, told The Hill.
“I don’t think that Mormons will be necessarily any more or any less represented in a Romney administration than they would in others…. But sometimes people tend to hire other people that they know, that they’ve worked with in the past.”
There are currently 14 Mormons in Congress: Sens. Reid, Hatch, Heller, Lee, Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Reps. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), Wally Herger (R-Calif.), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).
Those numbers are likely to grow some in the fall.
Flake, who traveled with Romney during the Iowa caucuses, is the frontrunner in both his primary and general election, though another Mormon, businessman Wil Cardon (R), is giving him headaches in the primary. Heller is locked in a tight race with Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.).
Flake’s old House seat will be filled by a Mormon, either former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) or former Arizona House Speaker Kirk Adams (R). Chris Stewart, a Mormon Republican, is considered a lock for a newly-created House seat in Utah. Mia Love, the African-American mayor of a small Utah town and a highly touted recruit running against Matheson, is also Mormon.
On top of that, if Romney wins the presidency there are a number of Mormon Republicans who are in line to gain political power.
Chief among them is former Utah governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt (R), a close Romney ally who has been tapped to head Romney’s transition team. He has been mentioned as a possible White House chief of staff.
A number of prominent Mormons have been major Romney donors — the types of people who often wind up getting offered ambassadorships.
These include Bill Marriott, a longtime family friend of Romney’s, and Kevin Rollins, a former partner of Romney’s at Bain & Company. JetBlue founder David Neeleman and Credit Suisse banking division CEO Eric Varvel, both Mormons, are on Romney’s finance team.
“A lot of these folks are very dear friends of his — they’ve known each other for decades now,” Hatch said. “I know every one of them and I don’t know of one of them that wants anything from their donations.”
But Hatch, who was an early Romney backer in 2008 and received Romney’s support in his contested Senate primary this year, said there was a natural tendency for anyone to bring along people they know and trust.
“Let’s face it, you do tend to want to bring some people with you that you know very well, that’s just a natural thing. I don’t care who it is, people all feel the same way,” Sen. Hatch said.
“Should Romney win and bring some of his people into the government, there will be a lot of people who are devout Mormons in positions of power,” said Paul Hatch, a longtime Republican strategist who grew up Mormon in Utah.
“As far as ambassadorships, Romney really does have a very strong donor base among Mormons that he’s cultivated since he ran in 1994 against Ted Kennedy for Senate.”
President Obama has appointed Mormons to serve in his administration, including former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R), who served as his ambassador to China. He also tapped Larry Echo Hawk, a former assistant secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Sen. Mike Lee noted that President Reagan named a number of Mormons to top positions, including Lee’s father, Rex, who was Reagan’s first solicitor general.
“While he was there he happened to hire one or two people who happened to be members of the Mormon faith, but that was not a conscious decision of ‘I’ve got to get more Mormons here,’ ” he said.
One of them was Terry Crapo, the brother of Sen. Crapo, who Rex Lee picked to be his deputy but died of leukemia before he could take the job.
“They had gone to [Brigham Young University] together,” Sen. Lee said. “It wasn’t about Mormonism — he was just one of the people he knew, an exceptionally bright lawyer.”
Paul Hatch, who ran Leavitt’s gubernatorial campaign and is now a consultant for Love’s campaign, said that devout Mormons tended to spend more time involved in church activities than those in other religions. He cited the church’s policy of having lay clergymen rather than full-time ministers as a reason.
“For a lot of people the Mormon Church becomes the center of their life. It’s more than going to Temple on Saturday or Mass on Sunday for an hour. People’s social circles are centered on their religious experience, particularly in Utah,” Paul Hatch said.
While Romney had a highly active life outside the church, he had also been heavily involved in its operations in Massachusetts, he added.
“Mormons are often who Mormons know — that’s who they’ve worked with, who they’ve built trust with, and the natural result is they’d bring in some of those people as staffers and assistants.”
Aaaah, I see.
So because you have already come to a conclusion about their character based solely on their comments about mormonism, you feel justified in the stealth slander?
Regardless of whether you believe they’ll be honest, they qualify as “satanists”?
Yet, you won’t engage them in discussion, it’s simply too easy to snipe with high-fiving character assassination from the shadows.
Tearing down other Christians who are posting truthful and factual information based on their research and experiences simply because you don’t like what’s being posted is satanic.
Epic fail...
Mormonism has taught for 180 years that it is superior, and "the only true and living church". The sect encourages this "superior" attitude in its doctrine that the only way to salvation is through following Joseph Smith.
When reading statements about how nice and helpful mormons are, keep in mind that most of them really believe in their superior claim on salvation.
Henry B. Eyring, “The True and Living Church,” Ensign, May 2008, 20–24
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, and it lives on.
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In fact there is a mormon doctrine that claims that elite mormons, (such as Mitt Romney) may take part in a ritual that guarantees on earth that salvation is guaranteed in Heaven.
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From the mormon university website,
CALLING AND ELECTION MADE SURE
[2] Now what is meant by making a calling sure?
All blessings promised in connection with the callings of God are conditional; they are offered to men provided they obey the laws upon which their receipt is predicated. (D&C 130:20-21.) "For all who will have a blessing at my hands," the Lord says, "shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world." (D&C 132:5.)
It follows, then, that when the law has been lived to the full, the promised blessing is guaranteed. "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." (D&C 82:10.) Accordingly, when a man lives the law that qualifies him for eternal life, the Lord is bound by his own law to confer that greatest of all gifts upon him. And if by a long course of trial and obedience, while yet in this life, a man proves to the Lord that he has and will abide in the truth, the Lord accepts the exhibited devotion and issues his decree that the promised blessings shall be received. The calling, which up to that time was provisional, is then made sure. The receipt of the promised blessings are no longer conditional; they are guaranteed. Announcement is made that every gospel blessing shall be inherited.
[3] What is meant by election? Who are the elect of God? To what have
The elect of God comprise a very select group, an inner circle of faithful members of the Church.... They are the portion of church members who are striving with all their hearts to keep the fulness of the gospel law in this life so that they can become inheritors of the fulness of the gospel rewards in the life to come.
"As far as the male sex is concerned, they are the ones, the Lord says, who have the Melchizedek Priesthood conferred upon them and who thereafter magnify their callings and are sanctified by the Spirit. In this way, 'They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God.' " (Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed., 217.) See Commentary 2: 267-269, 271-278, 283-285
You are truly pathetic. Moron.
#50 One good thing about these Mormon bashing threads is that it puts all the mormon hating, lunatic bigots on one thread so we can see who they are. A really sick, twisted bunch.
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That may have been true 40 or 50 years ago, but there have been too many people who like the Utah lifestyle, but are unwilling to do the work necessary to keep that lifestyle, for your statement to be true today.
I hope you’ve lurked for a MUCH longer time than you’ve been a Freeper!
Your statement doesn’t make sense to me. What are you saying?
HA-HA, He called you an ‘ilk’ too (as with me).
Welcome to the ‘ilk’ club:)
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