Jeff Shockey

Jeffrey Shockey is a US lobbyist and Congressional staffer. As almost his entire professional career has been spent either working for Rep. Jerry Lewis and for former Rep. Bill Lowery's lobbying firm Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, he is in the middle of a federal investigation.

Early life

He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1988, and an MPA in 1994 from Cal State San Bernadina He then received a Congressional appointment to deputy staff director for the House Appropriations Committee. Shockey spent the past six years as a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton & Shockey. He served on Congressman Jerry Lewis’s personal office staff as legislative assistant, legislative director and appropriations associate from 1991 to 1999.

Allegations of corruption

Shockey began his career on Capitol Hill serving as Congressman Lewis’s personal office staff as legislative assistant, legislative director and appropriations associate from 1991-1999. He then left his post in 1999 to join Lowery's lobbying firm. "Many of his new clients, including municipalities, hospitals and lesser-known universities, were from Lewis's district" and had business before Lewis and the Appropriations Committee. Shockey "helped win at least $150 million in pork for an array of clients," with the help of earmarks added to appropriations bills. [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1160453,00.html]

When Lewis took over the Appropriations Committee in January 2005, he bought Shockey back to work for him, while Shockey's wife went to work for the very lobbying firm that her husband had just left. Shockey received a $600,000 severance package from the Lowery firm and continued to receive payments from the buyout even as he worked for Lewis. [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1160453,00.html]

An updated version of Shockey's financial disclosure forms show that the severance package he received when he quit the lobbying firm to go back to work for Lewis was actually for $1.9 million and not the previously reported amount of $600,000. [http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_160154908.html]

On June 14, 2006, Shockey announced that he amended his 2004 financial disclosure form to show $2 million in yearly income rather than $1.5 million. The mistake, according to his attorney, occurred because $1.5 million was his 2003 salary; this figure was used in 2004 because he had filed an extension for his 2004 taxes and had not yet calculated his income for 2004 at the time of the initial disclosure. [http://www.sbsun.com/ci_3937778]

Senior citizen tax break

Shockey is a 40-year-old as of June 2006. But according to tax records of the District of Columbia, he is a senior citizen who earns less than $100,000 a year. That qualifies him for a major reduction of the taxes he pays on his District home, worth over a million dollars. The tax break essentially reduces the assessed value of an elderly person's home in half. In Shockey's case, he saved around $4,000 in 2005 by receiving the deduction, according to the city's online database. [http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000879.php]