ArchPundit

Jerry Weller story in the Trib:

Uneasy fit within GOP caucus

Weller’s emergence as a real estate developer near the booming beach resort just north of the Costa Rican border is another step in the political and personal migration by the one-time University of Illinois agriculture major who grew up on a hog farm.

Elected to Congress as part of the Republican landslide in 1994, Weller has been an uneasy fit within the Republican caucus. He has lost numerous intraparty races for leadership posts, and has never achieved the high profile he hoped for when he arrived in Washington.

Increasingly, Weller has focused on international issues, notably in Latin America, a region that has come to dominate his personal life and his private business dealings.

In January 2002, Weller made his first government-paid trip to the region, including a stop in Nicaragua to attend the inauguration of newly elected President Enrique Bolanos. In November 2004, Weller married Zury Rios Sosa, a member of the Guatemalan Congress and the daughter of Efrain Rios Montt, a general who ruled Guatemala in 1982-83, at the height of a brutal, nearly four-decade civil war during which an estimated 200,000 people were killed.

Between 2003 and 2006, Weller served on the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the International Relations Committee and quietly made himself into a go-to guy for interests seeking a conservative advocate on Latin American issues in the Republican-controlled House.

Cass Ballenger, a retired North Carolina Republican representative, claimed credit in a recent interview for helping to guide Weller’s career.

Ballenger, who headed the Western Hemisphere panel, said he told Weller, “If you want to get on some codels [taxpayer-funded overseas congressional travel] you ought to get on this committee. It’s something legal where you can live like a king.”