- The Associated Press has more information on the subpoena issued to San Bernadino County in relation to their lobbying contract with Bill Lowery, a close ally of Appropriations Chairman [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-CA). The subpoena "asked for all records of the county's correspondence with Lewis and his staff and with the lobbying firm, Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton, & White, which employs former California Republican congressman Bill Lowery". The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin is reporting that Redlands city has been issued a subpoena as well. A spokesman for Lowery's law firm stated, "This work was bread and butter, run of the mill, routine appropriations. ... This kind of work happens in Washington every day, every month and every year on behalf of municipalities."
- Mother Jones has an interesting article tracing the history of Cunningham-Wilkes scandal figures Brent Wilkes and K. Dusty Foggo. It just so happens that a certain Bill Lowery pops up in the article.
San Diego Representative Bill Lowery, for example, first elected to the House in 1980 at the tender age of thirty-three, traveled in the Foggo and Wilkes Honduran road show, part of a Republican task force organized to help sell Reagan's Contra war against the Sandinistas to a skeptical Congress and public. After leaving office, Lowery, who has floated around the edges of every Republican scandal from the Savings and Loan collapse of the 1980s to the recent Jack Abramoff lobbying case, and is now reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department, went on to become a top lobbyist, skilled in the art of "earmarking."
- Rep. [sw: John Doolittle] (R-CA) is in a tight spot this year, according to Bloomberg. The northern California congressman is caught between two of the biggest congressional scandals in history as he has acknowledged friendships with both Jack Abramoff and Brent Wilkes. Doolittle vehemently denies any charges of wrong doing but he is "one of at least four members of Congress whom prosecutors have focused on in their questions to Abramoff".
Craig’s (Check) List
One of the great delights of my west coast trip was meeting Craig Newmark, the genius behind Craig's List. Having been introduced to Craig's List by my daughters, and used it myself to rent an apartment and sell a car, it was a personal treat to meet this Internet celebrity.
He's been a huge fan of our Congresspedia. I took notes as he rattled off ways to expand it.
Continue readingYou Gotta’ Disclose
Bill Frist was found guilty of failure to disclose a $1.44 million loan taken out jointly by his 2000 campaign and his 1994 campaign committee. Kudos to CREW for being the watchdog. Wouldn't following the disclosure rules be better for our democracy than forcing the reform community to play 'gotcha'?
Continue readingFrist Fined By FEC:
Today the FEC announced that it is fining Senate Majority Leader [sw: Bill Frist] (R-TN) $11,000 for failing to properly report a $1.44 million loan that he took out for his 2000 re-election campaign.
In June 2000, Senator Frist took $1 million of the money that had been contributed to his 2000 Senate campaign and invested it in the stock market, where it promptly began losing money. In November 2000, Senator Frist sought to collect $1.2 million he had lent his 1994 Senate campaign committee. As a result of the stock market losses, however, Frist 2000, Inc. did not have enough money to repay the loan. Senator Frist solved this problem by having the 1994 and the 2000 campaign committees jointly take out a $1.44 million bank loan at a cost of $10,000 a month interest. Frist 2000, Inc. did not report this debt on its FEC disclosure forms.Continue reading
King of Pork
One might think it's a royal title that members of Congress would prefer to avoid, but such is not the case with Rep. [sw: Marion Berry], D-Ark., who told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that "nothing would please [him] more" than to be known as the King of Pork on Capitol Hill. As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Berry is well placed to vie for the crown. The article suggests something I've read before in several other places--that earmarks aren't a problem, that they don't in and of themselves increase federal spending:
Continue readingRoad Trippin’
I want to get back today to our west coast trip of last week, particularly our meeting with Mitch Kapor.
As I mentioned earlier, we really are on the same wave length with him -- 100 percent aligned on the issue of citizen empowerment and using technology as a tool for that. We agreed too that Congress is badly dysfunctional and that we must do something -- and soon -- to change that. We all believe that indeed that we have an obligation to fix the problems.
Mitch made this additional important point: in trying to fix the problems we have to refrain from doing things that make it worse - a sort of "Hippocratic Oath" for reformers. Do no harm in trying to change the system. To that end, Mitch cautioned us that an attitude of "gotcha" is the wrong direction. Instead, the direction for reform and for engaging people needs to be positive.
Continue readingMid-Morning News:
- Yet another Bush Pioneer pleads guilty, this time in Ohio. Tom Noe, a big Republican fundraiser and coin collector, admitted "that he used friends and colleagues to illegally pour thousands of dollars into the effort to re-elect President Bush," according to the Toledo Blade. Noe joins Jack Abramoff as Bush Pioneers who will be sent to prison. Brent Wilkes, alleged to have bribed Jailed Rep. Duke Cunningham, is also a Bush Pioneer under investigation by the Justice Department. Noe will face up to 30 months in prison.
- According to the New York Times, ethics officials testifying in the trial of David Safavian stated that he "had not told them important facts about his relationship with Abramoff" while he was working at the General Services Administration.
- The San Bernadino Sun reports that San Bernadino County has been asked by federal investigators to turn over "records related to the county's contract with a top D.C. lobbying firm tied to Rep. Jerry Lewis."
- Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) continues to face questions due to his relationship with Jack Abramoff, according to the Associated Press. Continue reading
AP Misleads On Reid:
The Associated Press reports today that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) misstated the ethics rules when defending his receiving of boxing seats and will no longer accept tickets to boxing matches to avoid the appearance of any impropriety. Unfortunately for the AP this story continues to misslead readers. Paul Kiel explains:
In an interview that appeared in Wednesday's The Las Vegas Review-Journal, Reid said that the exception for state agencies only applied to Senators from the state in question. Therefore, the exception applied to him and not Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who paid for his seat, because he was from out of state. That's wrong. It has nothing to do with what state you're from. The AP caught that and brought it to Reid's people. They admitted the AP was right on this point and Reid was wrong. And that's how Solomon can write that Reid "acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets." ... But let's be clear: What Reid was wrong about wasn't whether he was allowed to take the tickets. He was wrong about whether McCain was allowed to because he was from out of state. On the larger question, whether he was permitted to accept the tickets, Reid didn't admit to being wrong because he wasn't. Zinging Reid on his error would certainly be in order.Here is the misleading lede from the AP:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid learned that what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas after all. A day after The Associated Press reported Reid accepted free ringside seats to boxing matches from a Nevada agency trying to influence him on federal boxing legislation, the senator offered his own ethics justification to a home state audience in Las Vegas. And he vowed to keep taking such gifts. But Reid's comments Tuesday quickly reached Washington, where several ethics experts concluded the Senate leader had misstated the Senate rules to his constituents. Within hours of being questioned by AP about the ethics experts' assertions, Reid's office abruptly reversed course and acknowledged Wednesday night he had misspoken about the ethics rules.Now, I'm all for muckraking and uncovering what our elected officials are up to in Washington -- what they are doing in broad daylight. But writing a piece that seems intent on misleading the reader is unethical in itself. We already have enough disillusionment with our leaders who actually are corrupt. We don't need some hatchet job article that makes somebody who doesn't seem to have done anything wrong look corrupt. I'm sure that there's more corruption and graft going on in earmarking and government contracting. If the AP wants to break a story why don't they focus there instead of following dead-end trails that force them to make stuff up. Continue reading
Reid Did Not Break the Law; Somehow This Is Bad:
Yesterday, I went over why the Associated Press article on Harry Reid and the nonsensical reaction by certain partisans was completely off the mark. I also said that it was my personal opinion that Reid probably should have paid for the tickets to eliminate the appearance of impropriety, even though it appeared that nothing untoward had occured. Well, Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker and the Las Vegas Review Journal reinforce my first argument while showing that my personal opinion was wrong. You see, it would have been against the law for Reid to have paid for the tickets because they weren't tickets:
But it turns out that it would have been illegal for Reid to reimburse the commission for the seats. That's because these weren't actually tickets - they were credentials with no face value given to V.I.P.'s. And according to the boxing promoter who awarded those credentials to Reid, it is illegal for the commission to accept payment for them. Despite that, McCain insisted on paying, and so the commission simply gave his check (written for a seemingly arbitrary amount) to a charity since it couldn't accept it. What's more, that same promoter says that in other cases where Reid and McCain received tickets that could be reimbursed, Reid paid. That's a key fact which, if true, was left out of Solomon's article.So, Reid didn't break the law and that is a story? Soon we will be seeing headlines like this: "BREAKING NEWS: Over 500 lawmakers may or may not have done something wrong." Continue reading
And Cue Those Denials:
The three congressmen that Neil Volz said he and Jack Abramoff worked with issued their expected denials. The congressmen, Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Steve LaTourette (R-OH), and Don Young (R-AK), issued statements through spokesmen. Only LaTourette and Capito responded (Young's spokesman said that the congressman was unaware of Volz's testimony):
Deborah Setliff, communications director for LaTourette, said, "The congressman is the former chairman of the Transportation Committee's Public Buildings Subcommittee. About four years ago, Chairman LaTourette and Chairman Young signed a letter to the GSA encouraging hub-zone business participation in the redevelopment of the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C. Hub-zone businesses, a type of disadvantaged small business, are routinely included in large GSA projects. The congressman supported small, disadvantaged businesses then and still does today, and the policy is good regardless of who is pushing it. He has never supported turning the Old Post Office building into a hotel and supports legislation making it a women's history museum." "Representative Capito had absolutely no knowledge of the phone call that purportedly took place between her former chief of staff and Mr. Volz, " said her spokesman Jordan Stoick. "She was not aware of any contact with GSA, nor has she ever consented to her name being used in any way to assist in obtaining information from GSA on this matter."Continue reading
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