| By Clem Guttata
I think it is important to hold Congress accountable. I like the idea behind the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Annual Most Corrupt Members of Congress Report. Congress does a poor job of policing itself for ethics violations and voters rarely punish incumbents for all but the most egregious of violations, so it is laudable for any organization to attempt what CREW does.
A couple weeks ago, CREW released their annual list of "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" (emphasis mine):
A government watchdog group has released its annual list of the most corrupt members of Congress and it includes eight democrats and seven republicans. Melanie Sloan is CREW's executive director. She says lawmakers are automatically put on the list if they're under federal investigation.
"Most of the investigations obviously have to do with money. That somebody accepted money in return for some kind of legislative assistance or misused their authority and their power to improve their financial status or that of their families."
CREW says the list is smaller than last year and most of those on it are under investigation, including Senator Roland Burris and Representative Jessie Jackson Jr.
And, this is where a good idea falls apart in implementation. A major flaw in CREW's list is the presumption that a legislator under investigation is necessarily corrupt.
President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton were not corrupt just because there was on politically motivated investigation opened into a land deal in Arkansas. Likewise, no Congressperson is corrupt just because a politicized Bush administration Dept. of Justice opened an investigation about them.
This brings me to this year's list.
The 15 most corrupt members of Congress
* Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
* Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL)
* Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
* Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA)
* Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
* Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
* Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
* Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
* Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
* Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)
* Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
* Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
* Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN)
* Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
* Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
It's quite likely that at least a few of these members are indeed corrupt. Odds are good that one or more will be charged with wrong-doing before their term of office ends. (The publicly available information about Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL), Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) are all cringe-inducing.) It's also quite likely that one or two will have open investigations closed for lack of evidence or lack of merit.
Rep. Mollohan
Several years ago the Bush administration Dept. of Justice announced an investigation into Sen. Alan Mollohan. During that election cycle, the RNC invested heavily in his district as a targeted pick-up opportunity. It was all for naught--the investigation has not resulted in any charges and Rep. Mollohan cruised to re-election.
I've read CREW's report on Rep. Mollohan each year they've included him on their list and I certainly don't like the sound of their allegations. But, I can never get a sense if there's any "there" there. And, as the years pass the only new damning information we learn is about how politicized the Bush Dept. of Justice was--nothing new has come out about Rep. Mollohan.
Representative Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV) is a fourteen-term member of Congress, representing West Virginia's 1st congressional district. He serves on the House Appropriations Committee, where he is chair of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies; he is also a member of the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies and the Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
Rep. Mollohan's ethics issues stem primarily from misuse of his position on the Appropriations Committee, from which he has steered hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks to family, friends, former employees and corporations in exchange for contributions to his campaign and political action committees. In addition, Rep. Mollohan misreported his personal assets on his financial disclosure forms. He is currently the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The congressman was included in CREW's 2006, 2007, and 2008 reports on congressional corruption.
Earmarking of Funds for His Personal Benefit
Over the past ten plus years, Rep. Mollohan has earmarked $369 million in federal grants to his district for 254 separate programs. Between 1997 and 2006, $250 million of that total was directed to five nonprofit organizations that were created by Rep. Mollohan and staffed by his friends. During the same period, top-paid employees, board members and contractors of these organizations gave at least $397,122 to Rep. Mollohan's campaign and political action committees.
If Rep. Mollohan accepted campaign donations in direct exchange for earmarking federal funds to the nonprofits run by these donors he may have committed bribery and honest services fraud in violation House rules prohibiting dispensing special favors and engaging in conduct that does not reflect creditably on the House.
In June 2004, Rep. Mollohan, his wife, and two top aides took a five-day trip to Bilbao, Spain. The trip, arranged by the West Virginia High Technology Consortium and costing over $36,000 ($7,800 of which constituted the Mollohans' expenses), was paid for by a group of government contractors to whom Rep. Mollohan funneled more than $250 million in earmarked funds. By soliciting funding for his trip to Spain from TMC Technologies one month after TMC received a $5 million contract as a result of an earmark from him, Rep. Mollohan appears to be in violation of the illegal gratuity statute as well as House travel rules.
Rep. Mollohan continues to maintain a close relationship with several companies that either have office space in the complex run by a non-profit sponsored by the congressman or are clients of Robison International, a lobbying firm that has been a major campaign supporter.
Also, Rep. Mollohan's family foundation has received free rent and administrative services from a Mollohan backed non-profit while it accepted donations from companies supported by the congressman through earmarks.
Financial Disclosure Forms
Between 2000 and 2004, Rep. Mollohan went from owning assets of less than $500,000, generating less than $80,000 in income in 2000, to at least $6.3 million in assets earning $200,000 to $1.2 million in 2004. As of 2005, Rep. Mollohan's reported personal assets were worth at least $8 million and his liabilities were in excess of $3.43 million. In June 2006, Rep. Mollohan was forced to file two dozen corrections to his past six financial disclosure forms. If Rep. Mollohan knowingly filed inaccurate financial disclosure statements he broke the law prohibiting false statements.
(Their report continues with more details on the Dept. of Justice investigation.)
West Virginia voters deserve a prompt resolution to the investigation on Rep. Mollohan. If there was any wrong-doing, prompt action is warranted. If there was not, Rep. Mollohan deserves to have the cloud over his head lifted.
Money and Politics
As the CREW executive director noted, the tap root of ethics problems in Washington is money. One way to minimize the corrupting role of money in politics is public financing of elections. Another is to further lengthen the time limit between working in Congress and lobbying Congress. Recent reforms to make the earmark process more transparent are another helpful step.
CREW is working towards laudable objectives. I hope their efforts bring greater attention to those Congresspeople with the most egregious behavior and encourages the Obama Dept. of Justice to make well-informed decisions about case files opened by the politicized Bush administration. |
