The Odor From Capitol
Hill
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, October 18, 2006
As predicaments go for champions of
family values, few can top the embarrassment suffered by Representative Curt
Weldon when federal agents raided the home of his daughter, a Washington
lobbyist, in search of evidence that the powerful lawmaker helped her with
lucrative clients. The grand jury is still out on the investigation, and
Mr. Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, says he is innocent. But with each
fresh scandal, the tattooing of the G.O.P.-run 109th Congress continues in
pre-election polls.
Voters had no sooner adjusted to the shock of seeing Representative Mark Foley,
Republican of Florida, disgraced from office by his come-ons to Congressional
pages than Bob Ney took his turn on the pre-election scandal smorgasbord.
Representative Ney, Republican of Ohio, pleaded guilty to being a principal in
the quid-pro-quo insiders’ market run by Jack Abramoff, the corrupt Republican
lobbyist who is cooperating with investigators about his ties to Congress and
the White House. Another Republican, former Representative Randy
Cunningham of California, is already doing time. He sold his office in
steering $70 million in contracts to companies that offered bribes ranging from
a Rolls-Royce to a carpet emblazoned “Global War on Terror.”
It should be remembered that Speaker Dennis Hastert, now under fire in the Foley
scandal, helped dampen any chance of in-House ethical controls in his failed
attempt to save the career of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, an Abramoff ally
who is accused of political money laundering and is awaiting trial. The
sight of the ossified ethics committee forced back to life by the Foley scandal
is more pathetic than heartening. It’s small wonder that lawmakers feel
empowered to make ethical stretches — like Representative John Doolittle’s
boosting his own family’s value by having his wife designated a consultant and
paying her a 15 percent commission off the top of his campaign kitty.
The hustings ring with Democrats’ vows to restore ethical spine. But the
minority has its own problem in Representative William Jefferson of Louisiana,
who is accused of taking bribe money and hiding it in his home freezer.
And Democrats are not helped when their Senate leader, Harry Reid of Nevada,
amends his ethics filings to better report a real estate windfall, and misuses
campaign money to pay helpers at his Washington condo.
The G.O.P. leaders have themselves to blame for their multiple millstones.
If they had passed actual ethics reform, instead of deep-sixing it in bromides,
there could have been a believable independent corruption office to take some of
the heat off their current plight as compromised self-investigators. (One
of the defeated reforms would have denied pensions to lawmakers convicted of
official abuses. Instead, Messrs. Cunningham and Ney are likely to keep
collecting behind bars.)
Congressmen caught in wrongdoing at this time of year like to complain that
they’re the victims of election-eve politics. If the looming elections
inspire whistleblowers, we say bravo. The prospect of voting day fills the
vacuum created by the absence of an actual set of enforceable ethics rules in
Congress.
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