The ongoing federal investigation of Sen. Ted Stevens is exploring the Alaska lawmakers pattern, thoroughly documented by Chuck Neubauer, Judy Pasternak and Richard T. Cooper of the Los Angeles Times, of earmarking taxpayer dollars to organizations (among them Alaskan seafood producers) that hired Stevens’ son, Ben, as a consultant. Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press has the latest developments:

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities investigating Sen. Ted Stevens are trolling the Alaska fishing industry for evidence of whether the powerful Republican pushed seafood legislation that benefited his lobbyist son…

Industry officials and attorneys involved in the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities have told them not to discuss the probe, said investigators are asking about federal legislation that directly or indirectly aided the senator’s son, Ben, who is a state lobbyist and politician.

The legislation was passed as earmarks, brief spending items that lawmakers tack onto bills to steer federal money to pet projects. Ted Stevens, an unapologetic user of earmarks, is the biggest champion for Alaska’s $2 billion-a-year seafood industry.

Details of the earmarks under investigation–including what Ben Stevens did (or didn’t do) for his fees–are below the fold; it’s worth noting that because Stevens fils was a state lawmaker, most of these payments were made public on his personal financial disclosure. A bunch of Ben Stevens’ forms are available from the Center for Public Integrity, here–just scroll down toward the bottom of the page.

By the way, hat tip to Cap’n Ed, who makes some good points, not least of which:

Regardless of whether the FBI can prove corruption, these cases demonstrate clearly that pork corrodes the process of government. When our elected representatives place themselves in positions to have themselves or their families directly benefit from their legislative activities, it becomes a gross conflict of interest.

But I think I have the better headline…

In any case, here’s the rundown from Matt Apuzzo of AP…

_A $100 million federal loan program approved in 2000 to buy out Alaska crab boats, trim the size of the fleet and boost prices. The Bering Sea Crab Effort Reduction Fund, an industry group that supported the buyout program, hired Ben Stevens’ company, Advance North, as a consultant.

_A $30 million earmark Ted Stevens used to create the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, which provided federal money to promote Alaska seafood. Ben Stevens was the board’s first chairman and approved grants to companies including those paying him consulting fees, state financial disclosure reports show.

_A $50 million loan program, like the crab buyback, seeking to trim the Alaska salmon fleet in 2004. The Southeast Alaska Seiners Association, a salmon fishing organization, hired Advance North to help push the deal. Ben Stevens is not a federal lobbyist and the salmon fishing group said his business partner, Trevor McCabe, did the lobbying.

But Victor Smith, a fisherman and critic of Ben Stevens, gave the FBI a taped phone conversation that he said proves otherwise. In the 2005 conversation, Smith called the seiners group’s board member Bryan Benkman to discuss why funding was stuck in the federal bureaucracy even after the earmark passed.

Both men expressed disappointment in Ben Stevens and Smith asked why he was hired. Benkman replied that the younger Stevens recalled his success getting the crab buyback passed and pitched himself as a conduit to his father.

“He said, ‘Hey, see I’ve got a program. You know, I’ve got this one to my credit. Hire me, you know, I’ll get Dad to fund you guys, too,” Benkman said.

_A 2003 earmark that gave exclusive pollock fishing rights to Alaska natives in the far-flung Aleutian community of Adak. That meant millions of dollars for Adak Fisheries to manage the catch of pollock, the lucrative whitefish commonly used in fishsticks and fish sandwiches.

The company paid Ben Stevens $295,000 between 2000 and 2004, according to state financial disclosure reports. When the earmark went through, Ben Stevens also secretly held an option to buy into Adak Fisheries.

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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.

The meat of the bill is contained in these passages:

(1) PROHIBITING COMPENSATION OF SPOUSES- Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, no authorized committee of a candidate or any other political committee established, maintained, or controlled by a candidate or an individual holding Federal office (other than a political committee of a political party) shall directly or indirectly compensate the spouse of the candidate or individual (as the case may be) for services provided to or on behalf of the committee.

(2) DISCLOSURE OF PAYMENTS TO SPOUSES AND IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS- In addition to any other information included in a report submitted under section 304 by a committee described in paragraph (1), the committee shall include in the report a separate statement of any payments, including direct or indirect compensation, made to the spouse or any immediate family member of the candidate or individual involved during the period covered by the report.

(3) IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBER DEFINED- In this subsection, the term `immediate family member’ means the son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, mother, father, brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, or grandchild of the candidate or individual involved.

I find it a little odd that “indirectly compensate” isn’t defined — I guess that the Federal Election Commission will determine what that means (if you’re married to a UPS lobbyist, does that mean your campaign can’t ship via UPS?). In any case, here’s Govtrack’s page on the bill.

Just an observation, but I’ve always thought that of the two practices, lobbying by a spouse or immediate family member is potentially far more corrupting — there’s no requirement for a lobbying firm to pay fair market value for the services of a member’s spouse or son or daughter. (See here for one example….)

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Roll Call’s John Stanton has noticed that the disclosure requirement for members of Congress who might personally profit from earmarks–part of the reforms adopted by the House and the Senate–doesn’t apply to congressional aides. In October 2006, USAToday ran a big story by Matt Kelley and Pete Eisler that tracked the phenomenon among aides attached to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and their members, and found that,

The connections are so pervasive that, in 2005 alone, appropriations bills contained about $750 million for projects championed by lobbyists whose relatives were involved in writing the spending bills.

In all, USAToday identified 54 relatives of aides and members who lobbied in 2006. And, as Stanton notes, They highlighted a few of them:

• Lobbyist Juliet Pacquing collected $60,000 last year from Rhode Island manufacturer TPI Composites, lobbying disclosure forms show. Her husband, Kevin Cook, is the top staffer for the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water, chaired by Rep. Dave Hobson, R-Ohio. In news releases, Hobson took credit for securing money for TPI to develop an Army vehicle similar to the Humvee but with lighter materials. The total: $4.5 million. Hobson said Pacquing’s relationship did not influence him.

• Lobbyist Holly Piper’s firm took in $220,000 last year from e-Cavern, a company seeking federal funding to build an underground facility to protect financial information in a Kentucky cavern. Piper’s husband is Billy Piper, chief of staff to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and the second-ranking Senate Republican. McConnell added $1.5 million to an appropriations bill for the project. McConnell’s spokesman said Holly Piper’s relationship had nothing to do with the senator’s decision.

And, as Stanton reports, there’s still no requirement that those aides who secure future earmarks for a spouse’s client to disclose any potential conflicts.

I found these bits from the article (regrettably, it’s subscription only) especially interesting:

With no uniform rules governing the connection between lobbyists and aides, some lawmakers have instituted their own rules. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), for instance, have strict rules prohibiting relatives of aides from lobbying their offices.

Likewise, a spokesman for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) — whose wife, Catherine, is a lobbyist — said “Sen. Stevens has a long-standing policy that staff members’ spouses or his spouse is not to lobby them on any issue.”

A Reid spokesman also said the Majority Leader has banned lobbying of his office by the spouses of aides.

Following the investigation of his office, Specter put in place new rules governing his staff, including a ban on family members of aides lobbying Specter or his staff, barring aides from dealing with firms that employ their family members and full disclosure of any such relationships throughout the earmark consideration process.

Are these written policies? Why aren’t they on the members’ respective Web sites? How many other members have such policies?

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In what looks like the most authoritative list to date, National Journal reporter Marisa Katz identified 33 Senators and 30 Representatives “who have lobbied or consulted on government relations at the federal or the state level in recent years” in the magazine’s March 31, 2007, issue. Regrettably, it doesn’t appear that the excellent story that goes with that finding, or the chart, is online at National Journal’s site.

Among Senators, Richard Lugar, R-Ind., Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Harry Reid, D-Nev., Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, had two relatives with connections, while Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., had two and Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., was the lone member of Congress to have three.

Hats off to Katz for doing the work. I’m really surprised I missed this when it came out…

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The Washington Post’s Elizabeth Williamson reports that Congress is still family business friendly, particularly on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials:

Days after Jennifer Esposito became majority staff director of the House transportation panel’s subcommittee on railroads, her father, Sante Esposito, and brother Michael Esposito signed up as railway lobbyists. Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) has just taken a seat on the subcommittee, and in the coming weeks, the railroad industry trade association said, his father and predecessor in Congress, William O. Lipinski (D-Ill.), will register as a railroad lobbyist, too.

The new lobbyists join Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), a former congressman and chairman of the transportation committee who lobbies for railroads and whose son, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), also has just joined the railroads subcommittee.

The hirings come as Congress considers revising railroad safety regulations.

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Here’s an experiment occasioned by the excellent report by John Solomon of the Washington Post on spouses of members of Congress who lobby. Solomon identifies 6 lawmakers married to registered lobbyists (listed below). Is it possible, after reading the lobby disclosure reports that list these spouses (I’ve linked the results page in the Senate Office of Public Records page for each of them, making it easy to find the reports) to determine whether the member votes for the spouse’s clients’ interests?

Here’s the list, with links:

Sen. Byron Dorgan……….Kimberly Olson Dorgan here and here
Sen. Elizabeth Dole…………Robert J. Dole
Sen. Ted Stevens…………….Catherine A. Stevens
Sen. Kent Conrad……………Lucy Calautti
Rep. Roy Blunt……………….Abigail Blunt
Rep. Steven LaTourette……Jennifer LaTourette

The Washington Post has a nice database of congressional votes which should prove helpful when lobbyists list particular bills….

Update: Here’s an example. This disclosure tells us that Catherine Stevens, the wife of Sen. Ted Stevens, lobbied on S. 2439, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2002, for a group called CuresNow, which, according to this (scroll to the bottom) seemed to support S. 2439:

7. Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) have joined together to sponsor S. 2439, the “Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2002.” The act would ban reproductive cloning to create children, but permit privately funded research involving somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), sometimes called therapeutic cloning. This legislation is widely supported among scientific, medical, and patient groups.

Stevens, incidentally, was not a cosponsor.

The bill was referred to the Senate Juciciary Committee, where it apparently died. At the time, Sen. Stevens was not a member of the Judiciary Committee, so it’s unlikely he had much of an effect on the bill.

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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.

Worth clipping and saving. Number two on Morris’s list is banning family members from lobbying Congress, also a worthy idea. But I would add that there needs to be some kind of disclosure for adult children — which the stories about Rep. Silvestre Reye’s advocacy for a contractor that hired his children so richly demonstrate:

Reyes has been a key backer of the system and its contractor, International Microwave Corp. Shortly after its 1999 contract award, the firm hired Rebecca Reyes to serve as a liaison to what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She ultimately became IMC’s vice president for contracts. IMC also hired her brother, Silvestre Reyes Jr., as a technician on the program, known as the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System, or ISIS.

I wouldn’t object to any of the other items on Morris’ list, although I think all of them could go farther.

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The basic research is done, and before I begin making the earnest effort to digest the raw results, let me first thank all who participated–especially Beezling, who topped his prolific performance on round one with an incredible turn on round two–he did 319 this time around, doing by far the bulk of the entries. Get that man a fedora and a press pass!

More information soon…

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Nearly 7 p.m. Sunday, and we’re through 296 members and 41 states–pretty incredible. To all who’ve joined this effort, once again let me offer a heartfelt thank you.

Some preliminary numbers as we move toward the final leg, but first let me point out that these a). haven’t been verified and b). need to be looked at more closely to figure out what they mean. So keep those caveats in mind. Citizen journalists have tentatively identified $480,029 in campaign expenditures going from a House member’s campaign to a firms that employs that member’s spouse in the current election cycle. Citizen journalists have also tentatively found that organizations for which House members’ spouses work have landed a total of $2,788,663,441–that’s $2.7 billion–in federal contracts in 2005 (the last full year for which information is available) and $2,649,935,942–$2.6 billion–in federal grants in 2004 (again, the last year for which we have complete data).

What does this mean? I’m not sure. Maybe if you picked 296 names at random out of a phone book, you’d come up with similar figures for the companies they worked for. It’s the particulars here that count, and we’ll begin digging into them once we’re through phase one.

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Wow. We’re a little past the four hour mark, and we’re through 24 states and 188 members. I’ll continue to keep an eye on progress tonight, but this has once again been an incredible effort. Thanks to all who are making round two as successful as the first go round!

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