Thread: Pelosi & a "question of ethics"

A question of ethics
By Jonathan Turley
Tue Nov 14, 6:33 AM ET

In her first statement after the Democratic takeover of the House, the presumptive new speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, pledged that her party would create "the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history."

History, however, should give citizens pause before they celebrate the dawn of a new day. Pelosi's promise is eerily similar to the vows of her two predecessors.


Notably, in this election, Democrats took back the seats that they lost in 1994 when Newt Gingrich, who became speaker, led a Republican takeover based in part on his promise to create the most ethical Congress in history. Yet, ethics quickly gave way to earmarks, and Gingrich left the House in scandal.

We heard the same words from Dennis Hastert in 1999, when he became speaker. During Hastert's speakership, the leadership actually loosened ethics rules and prevented some bipartisan reforms from coming to the House floor. Hastert even engineered the removal of GOP members from the ethics committee who had voted to admonish former majority leader Tom DeLay for his misconduct - before DeLay resigned under indictment.


This history explains why lobbyists on K Street are not packing moving boxes in anticipation of an outbreak of good government. After all, these same Democrats remained silent for many years in the face of corrupt practices, often engaging in the very conduct that would now have to be prohibited.

A vote against corruption

Even so, there is one unexpected glimmer of hope: They might not have a choice. To the surprise of both parties, exit polls cited corruption in Congress as one of the most important issues motivating citizens to vote. President Bush had campaigned for some of the most corrupt members of Congress. His political adviser, Karl Rove, admitted after the elections that "the profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected."

Of course, "reform" can take the most curious forms in the parallel moral universe of Congress. For example, in 1997, the mislabeled House Ethics Reform Task Force moved to prevent ethics charges rather than ethics violations. Not only did the members bar citizens from bringing charges, but both parties also entered into a secret 7-year moratorium on any ethics charges by members.

While Republicans richly deserve the lion's share of blame for the grotesquely corrupt 109th Congress, it is only fair to note that ranking Democrats have long fought to preserve and benefit from many of the same loopholes and technicalities.


Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois has been criticized for accepting trips for himself and his wife that were paid for by outside groups such as the not-for-profit Aspen Institute. Likewise, the presumptive Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, was recently scrutinized for alleged ethics lapses, including a controversial land deal in Las Vegas and the use of campaign funds to give Christmas bonuses to workers at his luxury condo building in Washington.


None of this means that the Democrats cannot show that they are capable of personal change with needed political reform. Yet, the last Democratic proposals for ethics reforms contain obvious gaps that would allow the continuation of corrupt practices, including some favored by their leadership.


To-do list

If Pelosi is serious about "draining the swamp," here are 10 practices that would have to end:

•Free vacations. Prohibit travel for members and their family and staff paid by outside groups, including not-for-profit organizations.


•Playing the market. Bar members from legislating in areas where they have financial interests by closing a loophole in the definition of "outside income," which excludes investments and stocks. Better yet, require the use of blind trusts by members (already used by executive and judicial officers).


•Quid pro quo deals. End the practice of receiving windfall private deals from partners, who then receive generous government contracts. Require recusal from any matter in which a business partner has a direct financial interest.


•Self-policing. Create an independent office of ethics in which non-members investigate and rule on allegations of unethical conduct.


•Misuse of campaign funds. Prohibit the use of such funds for any purpose other than direct campaign costs for the original recipient, barring the transfer of funds to other candidates.

•Family lobbyists. Bar members from any official contact with family members who are employed as lobbyists and require recusal from any committee with jurisdiction over issues on which a spouse or a child is a lobbyist. Enact an ethics principle that expressly condemns the employment of spouses or children as lobbyists as harmful to the institution.

•Family businesses. Strengthen nepotism rules, including a ban on the hiring of spouses and family as campaign staff or contractors.

•Gifts. Change the scope of prohibited gifts to include the use of private jets by members and catered food for members or staff. Also require the valuation of gifts by an independent ethics committee.

•Club privileges. End all special access to the floor and other areas for former members that allows them free access as lobbyists.

•Earmarks. The primary currency for corrupt practices and pork barrel projects remains earmarks - special pet projects inserted into budgets outside of the usual competitive bidding and appropriations processes. Democrats have proposed changes but not the most obvious: Ban earmarks.

Believing in Pelosi's promise is the ultimate victory of hope over experience. Indeed, Democratic proposals still fall short of a true cleaning as opposed to a quick dust and polish in the "first 100 hours." Yet, if she implements these 10 reforms, Pelosi can prove that it is possible for reformed sinners to sin no more.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200...estionofethics

How Dems ‘clean house’
By Michelle Malkin

Remember how Nancy Pelosi exploited the female card before the midterm elections? "Maybe it will take a woman to clean up the House and a new speaker to restore civility," she bragged.

Women, she implied, do a better job than men because we presumably know how to get down on our hands and knees and scrub the mold and mildew out of every corner and crevice of our own domiciles.

But from the way she's acting, Nancy Pelosi doesn't know spic from span. She's conducting Beltway business as usual, just like the good old boys she demonized throughout the campaign. (Madame Pelosi just happens to do it in an Armani aqua blue-gray pantsuit that gets thumbs-up from obsequious Washington fashion writers.)

Well, a back-scratching corruptocrat in pastel is still a back-scratching corruptocrat. Case in point: Which congressman is Mrs. Clean considering as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence? Impeached federal judge Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., who took bribes, lied under oath and was kicked off the bench.

And which colleague is she backing for House majority leader? One of Congress's leading dirtbags: Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

As if his extremist cut-and-run war strategy weren't bad enough, Murtha's (un)ethical record is enough to make even liberal apologists blush.

Unfortunately, Murtha's defeated opponent, Diana Irey, couldn't get folks to pay enough attention to his Abscam past during the campaign. But now that he is poised to assume the speakership and all its attendant perks and privileges, the Abscam scandal is front and center.

In 1980, Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive bribery probe — in which undercover FBI agents videotaped Murtha entertaining a $50,000 bribe from agents posing as emissaries for Arab sheiks trying to enter our country illegally. Democrat defenders of Murtha scoff that the story is "old news." (Liberal math: Abscam story from 1980 equals "old news." Bush National Guard story from 1973 equals "new news.")

But only recently have we been reminded of Abscam transcripts that paint an even uglier picture of Murtha than the short snippet of publicly available FBI video in which Murtha turned down the bribe. As noted by The American Spectator, an old Jack Anderson column reported these little-noticed parts of Murtha's conversation with the undercover agents:

"I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period. . . . After we've done some business, well, then I might change my mind. . . . "

. . . "I'm going to tell you this. If anybody can do it — I'm not B.S.-ing you fellows — I can get it done my way." he boasted. "There's no question about it." . . .

But the reluctant Murtha wouldn't touch the $50,000. Here on secret videotape was this all-American hero, tall and dignified in a disheveled way, explaining why he wasn't quite ready to accept the cash.

"All at once," he said, "some dumb [expletive deleted] would go start talking eight years from now about this whole thing and say [expletive deleted], this happened. Then in order to get immunity so he doesn't go to jail, he starts talking and fingering people. So the [S.O.B.] falls apart." . . .

"You give us the banks where you want the money deposited," offered one of the bagmen.

"All right," agreed Murtha. "How much money we talking about?"

"Well, you tell me."

"Well, let me find out what is a reasonable figure that will get their attention," said Murtha, "because there are a couple of banks that have really done me some favors in the past, and I'd like to put some money in. . . .

So much for restoring cleanliness and civility, eh, Nancy?


Abscam isn't Murtha's only ethics cloud.


Defense industry lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, a former colleague of Murtha's who worked as a senior staffer on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, has reportedly funneled some $300,000 in campaign contributions to Murtha over the last three election cycles — either through his company, PMA, or its clients. They've reaped rich rewards: In 2006 alone, PMA clients received at least 60 earmarks worth some $95 million. Murtha also aided Democrat Congressman Alan Mollohan, who remains embroiled in a federal contracting corruption probe.


In 1992, Bill Clinton pledged to run the most ethical administration in history. We know how that went. Fourteen years later, Nancy Pelosi has recycled the pledge — and is now well on her way to recycling the same old soiled legacy.

With GOP sleazeball Jack Abramoff ready to sing about the corrupt Dems in his little black book, the dirt keeps on coming. http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/...ff_report.html
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/1...atic-senators/


Ed Morrissey reviews Reid/Abramoff ties. http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/...ves/008514.php


Rob Port smells Byron Dorgan.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/abr...e_politicians/


Remember when Pelosi called the GOP leadership a "freak show?" We'll see how the Democrat collection of grotesqueries stacks up at the end of your two years, babe.

John Kass at the Chicago Trib reports on some funny business involving U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, and their cozy relations with Antoin "Tony" Rezko--who has been indicted in an alleged kickback scheme involving state pension fund investments and Republicans and Democrats, a massive federal investigation the FBI calls "Operation Board Games."


A friendly woman-to-woman tip to Nancy Pelosi: To clean a house, you take the garbage out, not in.

Pelosi faces leadership test with vote
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi faces a major leadership test Thursday, barely a week into her new role, as Democrats vote on her choice for majority leader. She's supporting a lawmaker once caught up in a bribery scandal and known more recently for trading votes for pork projects.

Pelosi's prestige is on the line after endorsing longtime ally John Murtha of Pennsylvania to be the No. 2 Democrat in place of her longtime rival Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, rewarded Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott with their No. 2 post, four years after the White House helped push him out of his job running the Senate for making remarks interpreted as endorsing segregation. President Bush, on a trip to Russia and Asia, telephoned Lott on Wednesday with congratulations.

Pressured to step down from the Senate's top spot in 2002, Lott returned to the Republicans' second-ranking position by nosing out Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who had made an 18-month bid for the post. Lott promised to defer to Minority Leader-to-be Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

House Republicans, finding themselves in the minority for the first time since 1994, will meet in private Thursday to hear presentations from candidates for their half-dozen leadership posts. Their election is scheduled Friday. Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois is leaving the leadership ranks. Replacing him as the House's top Republican became a two-man race Wednesday between current Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and conservative challenger Mike Pence of Indiana. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton of Texas dropped out and endorsed Boehner.

Hoyer entered the Democratic leadership race with a substantial lead by most counts, but he has been scrambling to hold onto supporters since Pelosi's surprise intervention on Sunday. He appeared to carry a lead into Thursday's secret ballot despite Pelosi's opposition. "I think we're in very good shape. I expect to win," Hoyer said. "I expect that we will bring the party together and become unified and move on from this."

With characteristic gruffness, Murtha said the opposite was true: "We're going to win. We got the votes," he said Wednesday afternoon on MSNBC's "Hardball."

Allies such as Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. — also a top confidant of Pelosi — have been working this week to peel away votes from Hoyer. Pelosi also has intervened more directly, making the case for Murtha in one-on-one meetings with Democratic freshmen — sessions in which the incoming lawmakers ask for all-important committee assignments.

Murtha, a former Marine who generally has supported U.S. military efforts, has gained considerable attention this year for his criticism of the administration's Iraq war policies. He steered Pelosi's winning campaign in 2001 against Hoyer for the No. 2 Democratic leadership post, and his supporters say Pelosi deserves a more loyal wingman.

But Murtha is also a controversial figure. He was investigated in 1980 as part of the Abscam bribery sting, but was the only lawmaker involved who wasn't charged criminally.

FBI agents pretending to represent an Arab sheik wanting to reside in the United States and seeking investment opportunities approached Murtha and several other lawmakers with offers of bribes.

When offered $50,000, Murtha is recorded as saying, "I'm not interested ... at this point." A grand jury declined to prosecute Murtha, and the House ethics committee issued no findings against him. On MSNBC Wednesday, Murtha said, "I told them I wanted investment in my district. They put $50,000 on the table and I said, `I'm not interested.'"

Murtha has a record of not always being a leadership loyalist, frequently supplying votes to GOP leaders who were struggling to pass bills. The none-too-subtle trade-off: Murtha and his allies would do better when home-state projects were doled out by the Republicans.

He has been criticized by ethics watchdogs such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who have said he exemplifies a "pay-to-play" culture of Washington. The group says Murtha has steered defense projects to clients of KSA Consulting, a lobbying firm that until recently employed his brother Kit. Clients of the firm are generous with campaign contributions.

Hoyer claims considerable support from some liberals made uncomfortable by Murtha's opposition to abortion, gun control and changes to House ethics rules. He also is a leadership contact for many moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats.

Hoyer's backers say he has been an able lieutenant to Pelosi and has done nothing to disqualify himself from holding the same position in the majority.

He has been aggressive in lining up supporters, most of whom are sticking with him. "One of the first things I learned around here is that when you give your commitment you honor it," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., a Hoyer supporter.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_...ongress_leaders


Pelosi's in. Now, NRO's Jonathan Martin (terrific addition to The Corner) reports, the voting for Majority Leader has commenced. He's filing from the Capitol: http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...g3NmVhNWUzNGU=

The nominating speeches are over, and House Democrats are voting now to choose their new Majority Leader.

For Rep. John Murtha, nominators included incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Kendrick Meek (FL) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH).

For Steny Hoyer, it was Rep's Henry Waxman (CA), Elijah Cummings (MD), Dennis Cardoza (CA) and Brad Ellsworth (IN).

Murtha, the more conservative of the two, chose Pelosi and two liberals to assumedly testify to his true-blue bona fides, while Hoyer offered a mix of moderate (Cardoza and Ellsworth) and liberal (Waxman and Cummings).

Let the humiliation begin--Hoyer beats Murtha, 149-86.
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/1...murtha-149-86/


House Democrats Name Hoyer to No. 2 Post
Nov 16 12:37 PM US/Eastern
By ANDREW TAYLOR -- Associated Press Writer


http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/16/D8LEA3NG1.html

As new Congress organizes, Pelosi backslides on ethics
Fri Nov 17, 6:46 AM ET

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, anointed Thursday as the next speaker of the House, must have an awfully short memory for promises or an awfully narrow definition of corruption.

Perhaps both.

Less than a week after Democrats captured the House on promises to reverse the Republican "culture of corruption," who did Pelosi back to become the No. 2 House leader?

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who was implicated (though not charged) in one of Washington's most sordid scandals.

And who has she refused to rule out as the next chairman of the ultra-sensitive House Intelligence Committee?

None other than Rep. Alcee Hastings,D-Fla., a former federal judge who was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for conspiring to extort a $150,000 bribe in a case before him.

Not exactly a flying start for setting a new ethical tone on Capitol Hill.

Long before Murtha became his party's leading critic of the Iraq war, he was caught on a grainy FBI tape in the 1980 Abscam probe, in which undercover agents posed as errand boys for an Arab sheik looking to bribe congressmen for favors.

Murtha's reply to the agents' $50,000 lure: "I'm not interested - at this point." The congressman, who suggests on tape that they "do business for a while," ended up an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

These days, he is one of Congress' most ardent purveyors of pork-barrel projects and, as recently as this week, expressed disdain for raising Congress' ethical standards. Earlier this year, he joined Republicans to vote against a tough Democratic ethics bill.

Luckily for Pelosi, 149 House Democrats have more sense than she does. On Thursday, they picked Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., over Murtha as majority leader.

Hoyer is no purist. Since 1999, he has raked in campaign contributions of more than $600,000 from lobbyists, ranking him No. 5 in the House, according to Public Citizen, a liberal public interest group.

That points to a sad truth about Congress: Many of those who climb into leadership are steeped in its money culture. One way to get ahead is to collect millions from special interests and dispense it to colleagues' campaigns.

Pelosi's judgment and commitment to change will be tested again with her decision about Hastings, who, after getting booted from the federal bench, was elected to Congress. He has served on the Intelligence Committee and is backed by the Congressional Black Caucus for the chairmanship. His Senate conviction should be enough to prevent that. He is the wrong man to be entrusted with the nation's most sensitive secrets.


On Election Day, voters sent a clear message about ethics in government. They ousted several scandal-plagued incumbents, and 92% said corruption was important in their vote for House members.


Pelosi vowed to change Congress' culture. First, she'll have to show that she recognizes corrupt behavior when she sees it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200...slidesonethics

...And who has she refused to rule out as the next chairman of the ultra-sensitive House Intelligence Committee?

None other than Rep. Alcee Hastings,D-Fla., a former federal judge who was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for conspiring to extort a $150,000 bribe in a case before him.

Congressional Quarterly's Tim Starks reports that Pelosi may be putting the ix-nay on Alcee Hastings' bid to become House Intel Committee chair (via TPMMuckraker/hat tip Influence Peddler):

House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi was to meet with Rep. Alcee L. Hastings late Tuesday to close the door on his bid to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a congressional aide said.

But Pelosi, D-Calif., has not yet decided who will get the job, according to the aide. . . .

Pelosi met with Harman two weeks ago to discuss the House Intelligence Committee chair job. There is little to suggest Pelosi will reverse her intention to replace Harman atop the panel.


Does this make Pelosi a "misinformed fool" like the rest of us?

Progress (sort of) on ethics
Wed Nov 29, 7:27 AM ET

For those interested in congressional ethics (if that's not an oxymoron), watching the early maneuvering by Democrats who will take over the House next year has been less than inspiring. Tuesday, though, their leader got one right. An obvious one, perhaps, but still important.

The nation's top secrets won't be entrusted to a former federal judge who was thrown off the bench for conspiring to extort a $150,000 bribe.

After weeks of deliberation, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., decided that the ex-judge, Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, shouldn't be the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

This is progress of a sort.


Pelosi's earlier support of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., to be majority leader had already raised doubts about her dedication to cleaning up Capitol Hill. Murtha, a champion of pork-barrel projects and opponent of ethics reform, was implicated (but not charged) in the Abscam scandal, in which FBI agents posing as associates of an Arab sheik tried to bribe congressmen. House Democrats wisely rejected Pelosi's guidance and overwhelmingly selected Rep. Steny Hoyer,D-Md., over Murtha as majority leader.


She could hardly have remained credible had she followed up by selecting Hastings.


Hastings was acquitted in a criminal trial, but Congress found that evidence of his corruption was so strong that it impeached and convicted him, stripping him of his federal judgeship in 1989. He was elected to the House three years later, rose to become the No. 2 Democrat on the intelligence panel and strongly lobbied for the chairmanship. He lashed out at critics as "misinformed fools" and "haters."


Pelosi isn't saying yet who'll get the intelligence committee post, but there, too, her choice will be revealing. The top Democrat on the panel, fellow California Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record), gets high marks for being smart and discreet. But she's apparently insufficiently partisan to please Pelosi, and it also seems the two don't much like each other.


Beyond that decision, the new speaker's bigger test on ethics will come in January, when she's promised to crack down on gifts from lobbyists and pork-barrel spending. Already, those reforms are meeting resistance from old-timers. How fast and hard Pelosi pushes will determine whether "changing the culture of corruption" on Capitol Hill was a commitment or just a campaign slogan.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200...sortofonethics

Ethics panel says McDermott violated standards in taped-call caseBy MATTHEW DALY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., violated House ethics committee standards by giving reporters access to an illegally taped telephone call involving House Republican leaders a decade ago, the ethics panel said Monday.

In a report released days after Congress adjourned, the ethics panel said that McDermott, a former ranking member of the panel, failed to meet his obligations as a committee leader. "Representative McDermott's secretive disclosures to the news media ... risked undermining the ethics process regarding" former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the report said.

McDermott's actions "were not consistent with the spirit of the committee's rules," the panel added in a 25-page report.

The committee took no further action beyond release of the report.

The ethics complaint stems from a tape recording made by a Florida couple, who gave it to McDermott in January 1997. The tape recorded then-Speaker Gingrich, R-Ga., in a December 1996 conference call with GOP leaders regarding a separate ethics investigation of Gingrich.

McDermott, then the ethics panel's top Democrat, leaked the tape to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times, which published stories on the case in January 1997.

Gingrich, who was heard on the call telling House Republicans how to react to the ethics charges against him, was later fined $300,000 and reprimanded by the House.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled against McDermott in a related civil case in March. The 2-1 opinion upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott had violated the rights of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was heard on the 1996 call. Boehner was then a Gingrich lieutenant and now House majority leader.

The full nine-member appeals court vacated the appeals court ruling this spring and heard new arguments in the case in October. A ruling is expected next year.

McDermott, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, said he was pleased that the ethics panel had concluded he did not violate overall House rules. "I am also pleased with the committee's acknowledgment that pending litigation in the federal court will decide the question of law over the First Amendment issues involved," he said.

Because of the pending civil case, McDermott said he would not offer additional comment.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, a former ethics committee member who filed the complaint, said he was disappointed that the ethics panel did not sanction McDermott. "I'm not sure this decision reflects well upon the House as a whole or the ethics process," Hobson said.

He said he might change his longstanding support for an internal ethics panel and consider replacing it with an independent inspector general to investigate House members.

An aide to Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., declined to comment, saying the report speaks for its itself. Biggert led the subcommittee that investigated McDermott's actions.

---

Associated Press Writer David Hammer contributed to this story.

Ethics panel says McDermott violated standards in taped-call case

Senate moving on ethics bill
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Senators moved Tuesday to put more muscle into legislation to sanitize their tarnished image with proposals requiring lawmakers to pay charter rates for corporate jet rides and shell out the full cost for Skybox tickets to sporting events.

Members of Congress need to "demonstrate once and for all that we care more about representing the American people than the perks of power," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said.

Picking up on the anti-corruption theme that helped bring them to power, Democrats in both the House and Senate have started off with legislation to ban gifts and meals from lobbyists, limit privately paid travel and shine more light on the special projects, or earmarks, that have proliferated in legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday offered several alternatives aimed at strengthening the Senate bill, which has been criticized as being inadequate in several key areas.

Among the proposals were to require lawmakers to pay the full price of tickets to sporting and entertainment events and to expand the definition of earmarks to include targeted tax and tariff benefits and projects routed through a federal agency that benefit only one nonfederal entity.

Feinstein, the incoming Rules Committee chairman, said this would help stop the kind of backroom deals that sent former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., to jail last year for taking bribes from defense for his aid in steering Pentagon spending.

Reid separately offered an amendment to require lawmakers, already barred under the bill from participating in trips involving lobbyists, to pay full charter rates when they catch rides on corporate jets. New House rules adopted last week effectively banned all travel on corporate planes.

Currently lawmakers usually pay the equivalent of a first-class ticket, much less expensive than a charter rate, when they travel by private jet. Members from larger states such as Alaska or Texas argue that they would be unable to visit remote areas of their states without using non-commercial jets.

The amended bill, in addition to requiring a two-year waiting period before former members can lobby Congress, would bar lawmakers from negotiating for jobs with lobbying firms while still in office. "We should not tolerate a committee chairman shepherding the Medicare prescription drug bill through Congress at the same time that he is negotiating a job with the pharmaceutical industry to become their top lobbyist," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

He was referring to former Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who left Congress in 2005 to head the trade group representing pharmaceutical companies. Tauzin had chaired the committee that regulated drug makers and was a key player in passing the prescription drug bill that critics said was favorable to the pharmaceutical industry.

The Senate is expected to be on the ethics bill through next week, and it is unclear when they will vote on the proposed amendments.

The legislation, in the wake of the scandals involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Cunningham last year, has strong support, but Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., warned his colleagues to be careful of overreacting and "feckless positioning to make it look good." He said he was "offended that somebody says that for the price of a meal I can be had by a lobbyist or anyone else."

Lott also urged caution in considering another idea that is certain to come up during the debate, the creation of an independent office of public integrity to investigate ethics charges against lawmakers.

But Democratic Whip Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said the lobbying bill falls short of addressing the bigger question of the financing of political campaigns. The bill would ban a lobbyist from buying him lunch, he said, but "tomorrow that same lobbyist can have me over for lunch at his lobbying firm to provide campaign funds for my reelection campaign and its perfectly legal."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070110/.../senate_ethics
___

The bill is S. 1

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/

Senator Feinstein's Iraq Conflict
As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband's firms
By Peter Byrne

IN THE November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.

As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.

Each year, MILCON's members decide which military construction projects will be funded from a roster proposed by the Department of Defense. Contracts to build these specific projects are subsequently awarded to such major defense contractors as Halliburton, Fluor, Parsons, Louis Berger, URS Corporation and Perini Corporation. From 1997 through the end of 2005, with Feinstein's knowledge, Blum was a majority owner of both URS Corp. and Perini Corp.

While setting MILCON agendas for many years, Feinstein, 73, supervised her own staff of military construction experts as they carefully examined the details of each proposal. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were or subsequently became URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such MILCON projects.

In her annual Public Financial Disclosure Reports, Feinstein records a sizeable family income from large investments in Perini, which is based in Framingham, Mass., and in URS, headquartered in San Francisco. But she has not publicly acknowledged the conflict of interest between her job as a congressional appropriator and her husband's longtime control of Perini and URS—and that omission has called her ethical standards into question, say the experts.

Insider Information

The tale thickens with the appearance of Michael R. Klein, a top legal adviser to Feinstein and a long-time business partner of Blum's. The vice-chairman of Perini's board of directors, Klein was a partner in Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a powerful law firm with close ties to the Democratic Party, for nearly 30 years. Klein and Blum co-own ASTAR Air Cargo, which has military contracts in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Klein also sits on the board of SRA International, a large defense contractor.

In an interview with this reporter in September, Klein stated that, beginning in 1997, he routinely informed Feinstein about specific federal projects coming before her in which Perini had a stake. The insider information, Klein said, was intended to help the senator avoid conflicts of interest. Although Klein's startling admission was intended to defuse the issue of Feinstein's conflict of interest, it had the effect of exacerbating it.

Klein said that he regularly gave Feinstein's chief of staff, Mark Kadesh, lists of Perini's current and upcoming contractual interests in federal legislation, so that the senator would not discuss, debate, vote on or participate in matters that could affect projects in which Perini was concerned. "Earmarks, you know, set asides, you name it, there was a system in place which on a regular basis I got notified, I notified her office and her office notified her," Klein said. "We basically identified any bid that Perini was going for and checked to see whether it was the subject of already appropriated funds or funds yet to be appropriated, and if it was anything that the senator could not act on, her office was alerted and she did not act on it."

This is an extraordinary thing for Klein and the senator to do, since the detailed project proposals that the Pentagon sent to Feinstein's subcommittee for review do not usually name the firms already contracted to perform specific projects. Nor do defense officials typically identify, in MILCON hearings, which military construction contractors were eligible to bid on upcoming work.

In theory, Feinstein would not know the identity of any of the companies that stood to contractually benefit from her approval of specific items in the military construction budget—until Klein told her.

Klein explained, "They would get from me a notice that Perini was bidding on a contract that would be affected as we understood it by potential legislation that would come before either the full Congress or any committee that she was a member of. And she would as a result of that not act, abstain from dealing with those pieces of legislation."

However, the public record shows that contrary to Klein's belief, Feinstein did act on legislation that affected Perini and URS.

According to Klein, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics ruled, in secret, that Feinstein did not have a conflict of interest with Perini because, due to the existence of the bid and project lists provided by Klein, she knew when to recuse herself. Klein says that after URS declined to participate in his conflict of interest prevention plan, the ethics committee ruled that Feinstein could act on matters that affected URS, because she did not have a list of URS' needs. That these confidential rulings are contradictory is obvious and calls for explanation.

Klein declined to produce copies of the Perini project lists that he transmitted to Feinstein. And neither he nor Feinstein would furnish copies of the ethics committee rulings, nor examples of the senator recusing herself from acting on legislation that affected Perini or URS. But the Congressional Record shows that as chairwoman and a ranking member of MILCON, Feinstein was often involved in supervising the legislative details of military construction projects that directly affected Blum's defense contracting firms.

After reviewing the results of this investigation, Wendell Rawls, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., observes that by giving Feinstein notice of Perini's business objectives, Klein achieved the opposite of preventing a conflict of interest.

Rawls comments, "Sen. Feinstein has had a serious conflict of interest, a serious insensitivity to ethical considerations. The very least she should have done is to recuse herself from having conversations, debates, voting or any other kind of legislative activity that involved either Perini Corporation or URS Corporation or any other business activity where her husband's financial interests were involved. "I cannot understand how someone who complains so vigorously as she has about conflicts of interest in the government and Congress can have turned such a deaf ear and a blind eye to her own. Because of her level of influence, the conflict of interest is just as serious as the Halliburton-Cheney connection."



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Called Into Question

Here are a few examples from the Congressional Record of questionable intersections between Feinstein's legislative duties and her financial interests:

*At a MILCON hearing in 2001, Feinstein interrogated defense officials about the details of constructing specific missile defense systems, which included upgrading the early warning radar system at Cobra Dane radar on Shemya Island, Alaska. In 2003, Perini reported that it had completed a contract to upgrade the Cobra Dane radar system. It has done similar work at Beale Air Force Base in California and in the United Kingdom. URS also bids on missile defense work.

*In the 2002 MILCON hearings, Feinstein questioned an official about details of the U.S. Army's chemical demilitarization program. URS is extensively involved in performing chemical demilitarization work at key disposal sites in the United States.

*At that same hearing, Feinstein asked about the possibility of increasing funding for anti-terrorism-force protection at Army bases. The following year, on March 4, 2003, Feinstein asked why the anti-terrorism-force protection funds she had advocated for the year before had not yet been spent. On April 21, 2003, URS announced the award of a $600 million contract to provide, among other services, anti-terrorism-force protection for U.S. Army installations.

*Beginning in 2003, both Perini and URS were awarded a series of open-ended contracts for military construction work around the world, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under Feinstein's leadership, MILCON regularly approved specific project "task orders" that were issued to Perini and URS under these contracts.

*At a March 30, 2004, MILCON hearing, Feinstein grilled Maj. Gen. Dean Fox about whether or not the Pentagon intended to prioritize funding the construction of "beddown" maintenance facilities for its new airlifter, the C-17 Globemaster. After being reassured by Fox that these funds would soon be flowing, Feinstein said, "Good, that's what I really wanted to hear. Thank you very much. Appreciate it very much, General." Two years later, URS announced a $42 million award to build a beddown maintenance facility for the C-17 at Hickam Air Base in Hawaii as part of a multibillion dollar contract with the Air Force. Under Feinstein's leadership, MILCON approved the Hickam project.

*In mid-2005, MILCON approved a Pentagon proposal to fund "overhead coverage force protection" in Iraq that would reinforce the roofs of U.S. Army barracks to better withstand mortar rounds. On Oct. 13, 2005, Perini announced the award of a $185 million contract to provide overhead coverage force protection to the Army in Iraq.

*In the 2005 MILCON hearings, Feinstein earmarked MILCON legislation with $25 million to increase environmental remediation at closed military bases. Year after year, Feinstein has closely overseen the environmental cleanup and redevelopment of McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento, frequently requesting that officials add tens of millions of dollars to that project. URS and its joint ventures have earned tens of millions of dollars cleaning up McClellan. And CB Richard Ellis, a real estate company headed by Feinstein's husband Richard Blum, is involved in redeveloping McClellan for the private sector.

This investigation examined thousands of pages of documents, including transcripts of congressional hearings, U.S. Security and Exchange Commission filings, government audits and reports, federal procurement data and corporate press releases. The findings were shared with contracting and ethics experts at several nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based government oversight groups. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit organization that analyzes defense contracts and who examined our evidence says, "The paper trail showing Sen. Feinstein's conflict of interest is irrefutable."

On the face of it, there is nothing objectionable about a senator closely examining proposed appropriations or advocating for missile defense or advancing the cleanup of a toxic military base. Blum profitably divested himself of ownership of both URS and Perini in 2005, ameliorating the conflict of interest. But Feinstein's ethical dilemma arose from the fact that, for five years, the interests of Perini and URS and CB Richard Ellis were inextricably entwined with her leadership of MILCON, which last year approved $16.2 billion for military construction projects.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, remarks, "There are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest. [California Republican Congressman John T.] Doolittle, for example, hired his wife as a fundraiser, and she skimmed 15 percent off of all campaign contributions. Others, like [former] Speaker [Dennis] Hastert and Cong. [Ken] Calvert, were earmarking federal money for roads to enhance the value of property held by their families.

"But because of the amount of money involved," Sloan continues, "Feinstein's conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts."

Family Matters

Californians elected San Francisco's former Mayor Dianne Feinstein to the Senate in 1992. She was overwhelmingly re-elected in November 2006. She is well liked by both liberals and conservatives. She supports abortion rights and gun control laws. She politicked this year for renewal of the Patriot Act and sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban American flag burning. She is currently calling for President Bush to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, but she strongly supported the invasions, occupations and "reconstructions" of both Iraq and Afghanistan. She sits on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, and she is a consistent hawk on matters military.

And she is wealthy. In 2005, Roll Call calculated Feinstein's wealth, including Blum's assets, at $40 million, up 25 percent from the year before. That made her the ninth wealthiest member of Congress. Feinstein's latest Public Financial Disclosure Report shows that in 2005 her family earned income of between $500,000 and $5 million from capital gains on URS and Perini stock combined. From CB Richard Ellis, Blum earned between $1.3 million to $4 million. (The report allows for disclosure of dollar amounts within ranges, which accounts for the wide variance.)

A talented financier and deal-broker, Blum, 70, presides over a global investment empire through a labyrinth of private equity partnerships. His flagship entity is a merchant banking firm, Blum Capital Partners, L.P., of which he is the chairman and general partner. Through this bank, Blum bought a controlling share of Perini in 1997, when it was nearly broke. He named his close associate, the attorney Michael R. Klein, to represent his interest on the board of directors. Blum declined to comment for this story. Perini CEO Robert Band deferred to Klein for comment.

In 2000, according to public records, Perini—which partly specializes in erecting casinos—earned a mere $7 million from federal contracts. Post-9/11, Perini transformed into a major defense contractor. In 2004, the company earned $444 million for military construction work in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for improving airfields for the U.S. Air Force in Europe and building base infrastructures for the U.S. Navy around the globe. In a remarkable financial recovery, Perini shot from near penury in 1997 to logging gross revenues of $1.7 billion in 2005.

In December 2005, Perini publicly identified one of its main business competitors as Halliburton. The company attributed its growing profitability, in large part, to its Halliburton-like military construction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the company warned investors that if Congress slammed the brakes on war and occupation in the Middle East, Perini's stock could plummet.

According to Klein and to public records, Blum's firm originally paid $4 a share for a controlling interest in Perini's common stock. After a series of complicated stock transactions, Blum ended up owning 13 percent of the company, a majority interest. In mid- and late 2005, Blum and his firm took their profits by selling about 3 million Perini shares for $23.75 per share, according to Klein and reports filed with the SEC. Klein says Blum personally owned 100,000 of the vastly appreciated shares when they were sold. Shortly thereafter, Feinstein began calling for winding down the Iraq war while urging that the "global war on terror" continue indefinitely.

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Perini's Payday

It is estimated that Perini now holds at least $2.5 billion worth of contracts tied to the worldwide expansion of American militarism. Its largest Department of Defense contracts are "indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity" or "bundled" contracts carrying guaranteed profit margins. As is all too common, competitive bidding was minimal or nonexistent for many of these contracts.

In June, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, released a report by the House Committee on Government Reform criticizing the Pentagon's growing use of bundled contracts. Waxman complained that these contracts give companies an incentive to increase costs. One of the "problem contracts" identified by Waxman was a no-bid, $500 million contract held by Perini to reconstruct southern Iraq's electrical grid.

In fact, bundled military construction contracts fueled Perini's transformation from casino builder to major war contractor. As of May 2006, Perini held a series of bundled contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers for work in the Middle East worth $1.725 billion. Perini has also been awarded an open-ended contract by the U.S. Air Force for military construction and cleaning the environment at closed military bases. Perini shares that $15 billion award with several other firms, including URS.

Perini regularly performs military construction jobs from Afghanistan to Alaska. It built a biological warfare laboratory for the Navy in Virginia. It built fuel tanks and pipelines for the Navy in North Africa. Details of these projects are typically examined and approved or disapproved by MILCON.

At a 2001 MILCON hearing, Feinstein, attending to a small item, told Maj. Gen. Earnest O. Robbins that she would appreciate receiving an engineering assessment on plans to build a missile transport bridge at Vandenberg Air Force Base. He said he would give it to her. She also asked for and received a list of unfunded construction projects, which prioritize military construction wish lists down to the level of thousand-dollar light fixtures. While there is no evidence to point to nefarious intent behind Feinstein's request for these details, it is worth noting that Perini and URS have open-ended contracts to perform military construction for the Air Force. The senator could have chosen to serve on a subcommittee where she had no potential conflict of interests at all.

In 2003 hearings, MILCON approved various construction projects at sites where Perini and/or URS are contracted to perform engineering and military construction work. The sites included: Camp Lejeune; the Underwater Systems Lab in Newport, R.I.; Hill Air Force Base, Utah; the Naval facilities at Dahlgren, Va.; projects at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., and Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico; and military bases in Guam, Diego Garcia and Crete.

There are some serious problems with Perini's work in Iraq. In June 2004, the Government Accountability Office reported that Perini's electrical reconstruction contract in southern Iraq suffered from mismanagement and lack of competition. In 2006, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that Perini was paid to construct multimillion-dollar electrical substations in the desert that could not be connected to the electrical grid. And the company was billing the government for purchasing and subcontracting costs that were not justified, according to the Defense Contract Audit Agency. An October 2005 audit by the Defense Department's Inspector General criticized the execution of Perini's cost-plus military construction work in Afghanistan, saying, "The contractor had an incentive to increase costs, because higher costs resulted in higher profit."