Job floated to entice Romanoff out of Senate bid pays $165,300

One of the jobs floated by a top White House official to Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff, in an attempt to get him out of a primary challenge to an incumbent Democrat, would have paid him $165,300.

The director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency is paid an annual salary at the Executive Level III, according to the Plum Book, the government publication that lists roughly 9,000 appointment positions every four years after a presidential election.

The Office of Personnel Management lists Executive Level III positions as receiving a salary in 2010 of $165,300. A spokesman for the USTDA confirmed this number as the director’s salary.

The USTDA’s director position is a post requiring Senate confirmation.

USTDA has an annual budget of $55 million and 78 employees. The director’s post was one of three government positions that were dangled in front of Romanoff by deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina, according to both Romanoff and the White House.

The other two positions were Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and Caribbean at USAID and Director, Office of Democracy and Governance at USAID. Neither of those jobs appeared to be as high-paying as the USTDA position, based on searches of OPM’s website.

The White House has insisted that no job was technically offered to Romanoff, but that Messina followed up with Romanoff after the former state legislator had applied online for government jobs following President Obama’s election in November 2008.

But even the mention of a potential job with such high compensation, in exchange for political activity such as leaving a Senate race, is certain to raise new questions about whether the White House has broken the law.

Infamous earmarker Rep. Alan Mollohan loses Democrat primary election in West Virginia

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - A West Virginia congressional seat that's been held by a Democrat for generations is now up for grabs after 14-term incumbent Rep. Alan Mollohan was swept out of office on a wave of voter unrest that an opponent called a referendum on President Barack Obama.

The congressman is the first U.S. House incumbent to be ousted this spring primary season amid widespread anti-incumbent sentiment. The same unrest helped end the 17-year career of Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett, who lost a GOP convention on Saturday.

State Sen. Michael Oliverio carried 56 percent of the vote to Mollohan's 44 percent Tuesday night after an aggressive campaign that questioned the incumbent's ethics and support for issues including federal health care reform.

The defeat sets up a general election battle this fall in which both Oliverio and Republican primary winner, former state GOP chairman David McKinley, will try to position themselves as fiscal conservatives and foes of big government. Both had made federal spending a key issue in the primary.

"We announced our campaign 100 days ago, and in 100 days' time our country has fallen one-third of a trillion dollars further into debt," Oliverio said. "We have to get the country's financial house in order, and that's what we're committed to doing."