Published: May 23, 2006 11:27 am            

It's hard to smell the flowers this year

Tourists come to Washington for the museums and monuments and glorious spring blossoms. But this year, it's hard to smell the flowers. The odor of corruption, spewing out of the House of Representatives, is just too overpowering.

What's worse, lawmakers refuse to stop the stench. A House-passed bill labeled "ethics reform" is a joke, a PR stunt. The ethics committee, the chamber's self-policing panel, is totally dysfunctional. An amendment creating an outside review board never even came to a vote. And since most districts are stacked to favor one party or the other, most members are immune from electoral accountability.

Fortunately, outside forces are stepping into the vacuum. Dogged journalists have revealed a series of dirty deals. Prosecutors have procured a guilty plea from one member, Duke Cunningham, and indicted a second, Tom DeLay. A half-dozen others could face criminal charges. A chain gang of congressional aides and government contractors are also headed to jail.

Democrats hope to use the "culture of corruption" as a rallying cry in the fall elections, and they have a point. Republicans have run the House for almost 12 years, and as one of them, Chris Shays of Connecticut, admitted, "We are losing our moral authority to lead this place."

But two Democrats, William Jefferson and Alan Mollohan, are also facing serious legal problems. And perhaps other Democrats are innocent simply because they don't have enough influence to be guilty.

Money always breeds greed, and the amount of cash sloshing through Washington today is staggering. Lawmakers raise millions to fund their campaigns, and spend billions to fund the government, and the line between what's legal and illegal is not always clear.

When does a campaign donation become a bribe? When does helping a contributor or a community become a raid on the Treasury? We know firsthand that those are not easy questions to answer. Cokie's parents both served in Congress and channeled plenty of federal money to their home city of New Orleans. But we know corruption when we see it and smell it. And this Congress has strayed far over the line of legitimacy.

The system subverting Washington today starts with a legislator who acquires power: through seniority, friends, a leadership or committee post. That legislator helps place staff members in lobbying shops or law firms, and those aides attract clients by promising access to their former boss. Then they convince those clients to contribute to their patron, who rewards supporters by steering government contracts their way, and the contractors use their profits to make more donations and buy more influence.

This corrupt circle is centered in the Appropriations Committee, where the weapon of choice is the "earmark," a legislative device that directs -- often secretly -- exactly how and where your tax dollars are spent. Use and abuse of "earmarks" has exploded in recent years, and here are just a few examples:

-- Duke Cunningham. As a senior member of the Appropriations panel, he admitted taking $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for funneling defense contracts to friends and supporters.

-- Alan Mollohan. The West Virginia Democrat reportedly used earmarks to direct more than $250 million in federal funds to five nonprofit organizations, which then "paid generous salaries to Mollohan associates and former aides," according to a Washington Post report. The congressman also made millions investing in real estate with one of those associates.

-- Jerry Lewis. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee is under investigation for his close ties to Bill Lowery, a former Congressman turned lobbyist. "Lowery's firm," reports the San Diego Union-Tribune, "has collected millions of dollars in lobbying fees from public institutions and businesses that received money through the House Appropriations Committee. ...Lowery, in turn, arranged hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Lewis' political causes."

-- Harold Rogers. As chairman of the Appropriations sub-committee overseeing homeland security, Rogers has directed numerous contracts to companies based in his rural Kentucky district. Another beneficiary of Rogers' legislative handiwork, the American Association of Airport Executives, spent more than $75,000 sending Rogers and his wife on six trips to Hawaii, four to California and one to Ireland.

-- Ken Calvert. Calvert earmarked almost $10 million for road improvements near land he owned in his California district. According to the Los Angeles Times, several months after the bill was signed, Calvert sold his plot for a 79 percent profit.

Most legislators, in both parties, are honorable public servants. But today, Capitol Hill smells rotten, and even the best members will be tainted until the House cleans house.



Steve Roberts' latest book is "My Fathers' Houses: Memoir of a Family" (William Morrow, 2005). Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by e-mail at stevecokie@gmail.com.



Copyright 2006, Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

        

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