Talk:Ralph Hall

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.
Ralph Hall is part of WikiProject U.S. Congress, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to the United States Congress.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
The options are: "FA", "A", "GA", "B", "Start", "Stub", "List", "Disambiguation", "Template", or "Category."
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
The options are: "Top", "High", "Mid", and "Low."
??? This article has not yet been assigned a subject.
The options are: "Person", "People", "Place", "Thing", and "Event."
This article is part of WikiProject Texas, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Texas.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Ralph Hall article.
Article policies

[edit] Why the removal of detail about the party switch?

I have reintroduced the detail about Hall's party switch. I don't understand why this section was labelled "inappropriate." If there's anything inaccurate, then say what it is and why it's wrong. If there's POV language, I welcome suggestions to clean it up. This event was documented at the time, and I see no reason to leave out the details. Acsenray 19:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] There is extensive sourcing on this

The most published accounts across Texas about this election are Hall's Abramoff ties and his smearing an underage sex-slave worker in the Congressional Record being raised as an issue.

Excerpts:

In November of 1997, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) publicly questioned the credibility of a teenage girl's claims that she'd been the victim of the sex trade in the Northern Mariana Islands. The statement, which Rep. Hall entered into the Congressional Record, was prepared by Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist for the islands.

Hall's challenger in Texas' 4th District, history professor Glenn Melancon, has made the episode a campaign issue. "When investigators discovered child prostitution and forced abortions on the Mariana Islands, Congressman Ralph Hall was paid for covering it up and publicly attacking one of the raped children," read postcards his campaign distributed to voters.

Hall has called the charge an "outright lie." His office did not respond to our request for comment on this story. But records show that Abramoff's staff contacted Hall's office fifteen times in the two months leading up to his statement in the Congressional Record.

Hall has claimed he never met Abramoff, and "wouldn't recognize him if he saw him." But members of Abramoff's lobbying team contacted Hall's office fifteen times over the course of September and October in 1997, working closely with his office to counter efforts by House Resources Ranking Member Rep. George Miller (D-CA) to strengthen federal oversight of the islands' labor practices.

An Oct. 17, 1997 entry in the records shows that Lloyd Meeds, a member of Abramoff's lobbying team, discussed inserting the language about Katrina with Grace Warren, a staffer in Hall's office. "Telephone conference with G. Warren (Hall) regarding Katrina insert," reads the entry. Hall inserted the statement about Katrina into the Congressional Record a few weeks later.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001591.php

I am willing to let someone else make the entries into the article.

-- I see now someone already has placed some of this above the 2006 campaign in the time line.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/hall-remarks/

Elemming 22:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


I'm a big fan of talkingpointsmemo.com, but it's generally unacceptable to quote a blog. (TPMMuckracker.com, which is research, is different.) In this case, I happen to think that Josh has spun this a bit too hard. In any case, the wikipedia article links to the exact documents involved (Congressional Record) - you can decide for yourself. And I don't agree that this is a campaign issue - it's something that should remain in the article after the November election; what Melacon has done with this (gross exaggeration, in my opinion) isn't particularly relevant to the average reader. John Broughton | Talk 00:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
--
The 2006 campaign is over, so the section about that campaign was moved and re-titled.
As stated above the material about the CNMI controversy is well documented. I am sure that there was good intention when the meaterial was removed. Since the CNMI material is well documented, its removal brings neutrality into question.

F3meyer 07:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] clean up

I have cleaned up the section of the Northern Mariana Islands. The intro to the section had this:

The Northern Mariana Islands are a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific with a large garment industry.

This was misleading. The Mariana Islands consist of Guam and the Northern Marianas. Also the article had the name of the islands as the Northern Marianas Islands. This is very incorrect, as a simple Google search can show.

Just because bloggers and the media get it wrong doesn't mean we should too. - Thanks, Hoshie 03:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)