The House Ethics Committee officially launched a probe of the troubled finances of Rep. Charles Rangel, the House Ways and... View Article
Continue readingIn Broad Daylight: Lobbyists, Financial Advisers
Two years ago, I was named Time’s person of the year and now I own an insurance company, two mortgage... View Article
Continue readingEthics v. Prudery
Over the past week or two I’ve learned two things: do not tap your foot in the bathroom and that prudery is more prevalent on Capitol Hill than a true ethical fiber. Apparently it is more worrying that a Senator may be a deeply closeted gay man than it is that another Senator is deeply tied into a massive FBI-led corruption investigation or that a senior congressman is being investigated for perhaps the shadiest earmark ever. I read this article by Norm Ornstein today and couldn’t agree more with what he has to say. With so many corruption scandals, not just tawdry sex scandals, “Who believes that the ethics committee will act proactively to investigate allegedly scandalous behavior before stories garner headlines or result in announcements by prosecutors that Senators are targets or subjects of investigations?”
Continue readingHouse Moves to Limit Family Business
The Washington Post reports on a bipartisan effort in the House to ban a practice that Sunlight and citizen journalists investigated in 2006: How many members of Congress were using campaign contributions to pay their spouses, in essence putting special interest money into the family budget?
In the latest ripple of an ethics spat gripping Congress, the House yesterday passed a bipartisan bill that bans lawmakers from paying their spouses for campaign work. The measure, passed on a voice vote, was sponsored by Reps. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and Michael N. Castle (R-Del.). It would not bar other family members from working on a lawmaker's campaign but would require disclosure.Currently, spouses can work for campaigns provided that they charge fair market value for their services. The measure still has to passed by the Senate. Continue reading
Democrats Living Up to Their Pledge
The Politico reports that even when it appears to be against their fundraising interests, the Democrats felt pressured last week to live up to their anti-corruption pledge that swept them into the office in the last election.
"The most important thing for our new members is to be able to go back to their constituents and say they were part of changing the direction in Washington, and that includes holding Congress accountable and holding members accountable," Rep. Van Hollen, DCCC chairman said.
Jeanne Cummings concludes her column by saying:
Continue readingDick Morris Proposes Banning Some of Congress’s Family Businesses
While it's a little odd see Dick Morris, the former hired gun political advisor of both Bill Clinton and Trent Lott, show an interest in congressional ethics, it's worth noting that among the reforms he proposes (indeed, the top one on his list) is banning campaigns and Political Action Committees from hiring family members of members of Congress. Morris has a pretty long list that includes not just spouses, not just children, but also brothers, cousins, nephews and an in-law:
Those who have hired spouses and family members include: Reps. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), wife and two brothers; Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), husband’s law firm; Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wife and step-daughter; John Doolittle (R-Calif.), wife; Ralph Hall (R-Texas), daughter-in-law; Pete Stark (D-Calif.), wife; Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), wife; Ron Lewis (R-Ky.), wife; Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), wife; Jim Costa (D-Calif.), cousin; Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), wife; Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), nephew; Chris Cannon (R-Utah), three daughters; Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), sister-in-law and daughter; Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), wife; Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), daughter; Bob Filner (D-Calif.), wife; J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), wife; Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), wife; Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), wife; Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), wife; John Sweeney (R-N.Y.), wife; Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), wife; Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), nephew; John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), son; and Howard Berman (D-Calif.), brother Michael’s political consulting firm; Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), son; and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), son and daughter during vice presidential race; and ex-Reps. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), wife; and Tom DeLay (R-Texas), wife and daughter.Continue reading
Rick Renzi Deal Helped Pay for 2002 Campaign
We've already got two separate items linked on the reported investigations of Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz. One concerns his involvement in a land swap deal that made a $3 million profit for James Sandlin, a a real estate investor who'd bought half of a business owned by Renzi for $200,000 in 2001 (Sandlin would later buy the rest for somewhere between $1,000,001 and $5 million). The second story notes an inquiry into Renzi's influence on behalf of a government contractor, Mantech International, of which his father is an executive vice president.
Continue readingCongress’s Landed Gentry
So what is it with members of Congress and land deals? Sen. Harry Reid failed to disclose what the Associated Press describes as "a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale" on property he hadn't owned for three years. "The complex dealings allowed Reid to transfer ownership, legal liability and some tax consequences to Brown's company without public knowledge, but still collect a seven-figure payoff nearly three years later," reporters John Solomon and Kathleen Hennessey wrote. Rep. Charles Taylor, meanwhile, "owns at least 14,000 acres of prime land in western North Carolina. He's also the local congressman. So when he steers federal dollars to his district, sometimes he helps himself, too," John Wilkes reported in the Wall Street Journal (the story is available online here). Sen. Bob Menendez has his lease deal with nonprofit for which he's secured federal funds, while House Speaker Dennis Hastert has his own profits from earmarks and land deals. The real estate dealings of Rep. Gary Miller and Rep. Alan Mollohan have also come under scrutiny (as noted in the Journal article).
Continue readingCitizen Muckraker
Jeffrey Birnbaum has a tremendously thoughtful piece in the Washington Monthly exploring what the ongoing corruption investigations and prosecutions that stem mostly from Jack Abramoff’s exploits. Full disclosure, I’m a pessimist by nature, so take that into account, but as I read Birnbaum’s piece, I can’t help thinking that his notion that we might be seeing an end to legalized bribery—by which he primarily means the system by which we finance campaigns—is overly optimistic and a little premature.
Continue readingSeriously
InstaPundit posted a bit of this commentary ($$$$) by David Winston, which notes,
The antics of Reps. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) coupled with the ethical cloud now hanging over Reps. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) and William Jefferson (D-La.) and even Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) make it difficult, if not impossible, to take seriously the "corruption" diatribes we hear regularly from top Capitol Hill Democrats.One might well ask, as the Pet Shop Boys might put it, how can they expect to be taken seriously? Certainly, there is nothing--no ideological orientation, no policy proposal, no higher standard of candidate recruitment--that makes individual Democrats (or Republicans, for that that matter) ethically pure. Continue reading
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