Bob Schaffer, running against Mark Udall in Colorado, has big Jack Abramoff problems -- and he's making them worse:

In a Denver Post profile, he pointed to the Marianas as a model for the kind of guest worker program he'd like to see adopted nationally to help fix our broken immigration system. That set the scribes to researching the 1999 trip, complete with travel arrangements handled by Abramoff's firm, free accommodations for Bob and his wife Maureen at a beach resort, meetings with Abramoff clients like the Saipan Garment Manufacturers' Association, and some lovely parasailing lessons. The textile factory owners told Bob that labor conditions were peachy keen and all the reports of workers imported from China and Bangladesh under false pretenses, housed in barracks surrounded by barbed wire, laboring 12 hours a day, seven days a week, desperately trying to make their quotas, were just a smear campaign cooked up by union bosses. And so Bob dutifully reported back. Mission accomplished.

Upon his return, as part of the House Resources Committee Schaffer turned oversight hearings into an attack on the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs, which was pushing for reform:

Schaffer was one of the key players in the hearing, grilling a young worker who had been called before the committee to talk about the desperate conditions faced by some laborers, suggesting instead that he was agitating in exchange for money and came to Washington to seek political asylum.

In addition to the Abramoff trip valued at $13,500, Schaffer also took $10,000 from factory owners and politicians in the Marianas. Probably just a big coincidence.

Campaign Money Watch is pushing for Schaffer to give that money to charities which benefit the people exploited in the Marianas. More here.