Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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FEC Guts Post-Abramoff Reform
I agree wholeheartedly with this New York Times editorial:
The Federal Election Commission — the supposed referee of fair campaigning — has just created an ethics loophole big enough for lobbyists to fly a corporate jet through. The commission has taken upon itself to reverse the Senate’s self-restriction against lawmakers’ cozy cut-rate travels on corporate jets.
The planes were long provided on demand from favor-seeking executives and lobbyists intent on private time with lawmakers. But, two years after the Jack Abramoff corruption scandals, the Senate banned the practice of paying a mere single-seat rate for commandeering their friendly exec’s company plane. It mandated that members pay the full (prohibitive) charter rate, as if renting the whole plane themselves. This targeted an abuse by which corporations provided jets to grateful lawmakers to dash about on political errands at token prices. (The House went the Senate one better with an outright ban on flying on noncommercial aircraft.)
The F.E.C. gutted the reform by totally misinterpreting it to say it does not apply when a senator is traveling on behalf of assorted party committees and not as “a candidate” himself. This is nonsense by any fair reading of the Senate’s rule, which clearly considers any incumbent an ongoing candidate 24/7, regardless of announced business in hopping a corporate jet.
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AM Links
Politico looks at health care lobbyists-turned-staffers on the Senate Finance Committee with the aid of LittleSis. For a look at staffers-turned-health care lobbyists you can see our research here.
Former Abramoff lobbyist Kevin Ring is on trial in, perhaps, the most interesting corruption trial in Washington in quite some time. Neil Volz, another Abramoff crony and former staffer to Rep. Bob Ney, testified the other day and included tons of gory details:
Volz described his lobbying team’s practice of giving tickets, meals and drinks to public officials and staffers who were deemed valuable, as well as taking those individuals on trips.
“Really we just wanted to party,” Volz said about a trip he took to New Orleans with Ney, former Ney chief of staff Will Heaton, and other lobbyists. He said the group met a client and toured some homes, but those were not the main objectives of the trip, which he described as “part of the corrupt relationship” he had with Ney and his staffers.
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Volz described a discussion he had with Ring about “getting the joke,” a term used for a lobbyist getting a staffer to prioritize an issue because the lobbyist is “taking care of them,” after the Abramoff scandal began to surface in 2004.
“We thought, ‘Boy, it would be pretty difficult to defend the idea of getting the joke,’” he said of his conversation with Ring.
Over the weekend, the New York Times posted this great visualization of Clean Water Act violations and the lack of enforcement in all 50 states. One of the primary reasons why government data needs to be online and in accessible formats is for news organizations, designers and coders to create visualizations or databases that can concisely explain an issue, or reveal a problem, to the public at large.
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Countering the Reward Method of Corruption
David Sirota posted on OpenLeft yesterday on what he called “the reward method of corruption.” Sirota writes, “As opposed to the Payoff Method whereby a campaign contribution is made and then a favor is legislated, the Reward Method gives a politician a goodie after a favor is done, sorta like a dog being given a treat for rolling over.” This is one of two major issues raised by the revolving door between government and lobbying. (The other issue being the use of access built up over the years.)
While I don’t think there is a direct answer, which Sirota was seeking, to how to stop the flow of lawmakers and staffers from government to the lobbying profession–short of greatly increasing their pay–there are some things to mitigate the effects.
First, let’s look at the problem. This goes from the somewhat benign, lawmaker goes to work for a nonprofit cause not connected to private enterprise, to the wholly corrupt, the various staffers who did deals for Jack Abramoff and then were hired by his lobbying firm. But for the most part, these things fall in between, a staffer or lawmaker has a particular expertise and flips to make more money doing, essentially, the same thing they were doing in Congress.
Now perhaps the biggest fear is that, in preparation for a future career on K Street, a staffer or lawmaker will do favors, directly or indirectly, having been asked or on their own volition, to protect future hiring opportunities. The biggest example of this is Billy Tauzin, who was in talks to head the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbying shop, PhRMA, while he was writing the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, the largest health care overhaul since the 1960s. Tauzin’s tale included many instances of opaque situations: closed conference committees with lobbyists at the table, secret discussions for future employment, unreported meetings with lobbyists. The revelation of all of these things would have aided in providing the public with a view into Tauzin’s world preemptively.
What I’m saying is that the preemptive, or real time, disclosure of a variety of items would allow the public to prevent a lawmaker from doing favors for a potential future employer. The following would be most useful:
- Real time lobbying disclosure with increased reporting requirements — We’ve covered this here, here and here recently. Require lobbyists to disclosure all meetings with covered officials within 24 hours. Require lobbyists to report with whom they meet and the office of the lawmaker when they are meeting with staffers. Also require specific information on positions taken on bills, appropriations, or other topics of discussion.
- Open all conference committees and require time to read conference reports — Require all conference committees to be open to the public (didn’t the Democrats promise this back in 2006?) and require all conference reports to be available for 72 hours prior to consideration. (Of course, beyond this, all committees should be open and all bills should be available for 72 hours prior to consideration.)
- Increase reporting requirement for job negotiations — Currently, members of the House and some staffers must report job negotiations to the Clerk of the House, but the information is not publicly available.
As I said earlier, I don’t think there is a direct way to limit government officials from leaving for a more lucrative profession outside of increasing their pay. There could be a longer “cooling off” period in the House, where it is only one year, and perhaps an extension to staff making less money than currently meets the threshold for the post-employment lobbying restriction. But that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from taking positions as “consultants” and later becoming lobbyists (see: Hastert, Dennis or Daschle, Tom).
Greater transparency and disclosure would, however, be the best solution at present to provide less incentive for lawmakers and staff to act favorably for future employment. With more eyes on their actions there will be fewer Billy Tauzin’s, Kevin Ring’s, Michael Scanlon’s, and Tony Rudy’s.
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Convicted Congressman Tied to Arrested Businessman
R. Allen Stanford, the titan of Stanford Financial, and now the known as the Texas version of Bernie Madoff, spent a lot of time spreading his money around Capitol Hill. TPM Muckraker has done great work examining the Caribbean junkets organized by a nonprofit that received heavy funding from Standford, the Inter-American Economic Council (IAEC).
One of the congressmen shown to have benefited from Stanford’s largess was Rep. Bob Ney. Ney would eventually plead guilty to trading his services for gifts and campaign contributions from Jack Abramoff and his merry band of lobbyists. At the time, Ney held powerful positions as the Chair of the Committee on House Administration and on the House Committee on Financial Services. Stanford’s main interest in wooing congressmen was to block any legislation that could close or effect the operations of his Antigua-based bank.
Ney, and his staff (one of whom, Will Heaton, would later plead guilty in the Abramoff case), received $26,177 in travel to Miami, FL and Caribbean islands paid for by the IAEC. Ney also received $26,200 in campaign contributions from Stanford Financial Group employees. More than half of those contributions ($14,200) came after Ney inserted the following into the Congressional Record:
Mr. NEY. Mr. Speaker:
Whereas, Allen R. Stanford has been recognized as the 2006 Recipient of the “Excellence in Leadership Award” by the Inter-American Economic Council ; and
Whereas, Allen R. Stanford has been acknowledged for his performance and leadership in the areas of finance and investments; and
Whereas, Allen R. Stanford should be commended for his service as the CEO of the Stanford Financial Group based in Houston, Texas.
Therefore, I join with the residents of the entire 18th Congressional District of Ohio in honoring and congratulating Allen R. Stanford for his outstanding accomplishments.
I’m sure that the people of Ohio’s 18th Congressional District love to have been included in the congratulations from one criminal to another. More important than that is Ney’s prior use of the Congressional Record to do favors for Jack Abramoff and pals. In 2000, Ney twice inserted comments into the Congressional Record in support of Abramoff and Adam Kidan’s takeover of SunCruz Casinos, a takeover that would eventually send them both to prison. In exchange for the comments, Abramoff and Kidan contributed $10,000 in Ney’s name to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Ney was under extreme pressure to raise money for the NRCC at the time.
It isn’t entirely clear whether Ney’s use of the Congressional Record to commend Stanford copies the actions he undertook for Jack Abramoff and Adam Kidan. However, after receiving zero contributions for all of 2005, Ney suddenly found himself the recipient of $14,200 in contributions from Stanford and top Stanford Financial Group employees. The majority of the contributions, $10,000, came on October 28, 2005. Ten days later, Stanford contributed $4,200 to Ney’s reelection campaign. One year later, Stanford became a contributor to Ney’s legal defense fund.
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Abramoff Investigation Continues Apace
Last week, another former associate of Jack Abramoff’s pled guilty to charges of trying to corrupt a public office. Todd Boulanger, a former staffer in the office former Sen. Bob Smith, worked in Abramoff’s lobbying team from 1999 to 2004. (He also hilariously appears in this Daily Show clip as a CNN talking head.) Boulanger’s guilty plea provides information on more unnamed congressional staffers coming into investigation. These staffers are now known as “Staffer D,” a Transporation and Infrastructure Committee staffer; “Staffer E,” a top aide with Sen. Thad Cochran; “Staffer F,” an unknown legislative director.
“Staffer E” has been identified as Ann Copland, a former aide to Sen. Cochran now working (Copland is apparently no longer working at MPB, see the comment below) at Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Copland appears in the court documents as receiving a stream of tickets to events (NSYNC, Paul McCartney, Green Day, ice skating, and more) in exchange for using her official position to do the bidding of Abramoff and his lobbying team. She appears in the guilty pleas of both Boulanger and Kevin Ring, another lobbyist indicted in the scandal.
Below is an updated list of all the figures in the Abramoff scandal who have either pleaded guilty, been convicted, indicted, named in court documents, or had their career brought to an abrupt end by being mentioned in the scandal.
Officials and Lobbyists Brought Down in Abramoff Scandal Jack Abramoff Lobbyist, Preston Gates, Greenberg Traurig Convicted; Sentenced to 13 Years 4 Months Michael Scanlon Former Comm. Director to Rep. Tom DeLay; Public Relations Executive Pleaded Guilty Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) House of Representatives; Chair of Committee on House Administration Pleaded Guilty; Released from prison after serving 17 months J. Steven Griles Deputy Secretary of the Interior Pleaded Guilty; Sentenced to 10 months in prison Tony Rudy Deputy Chief of Staff to Rep. Tom DeLay; Lobbyist, Greenberg Traurig Pleaded Guilty David Safavian General Services Administration, Chief of Staff; Office of Management and Budget, Top Procurement Officer Convicted; Sentenced to 18 months in prison Neil Volz Chief of Staff to Rep. Bob Ney Pleaded Guilty Italia Federici President of Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy Pleaded Guilty Mark Zachares Aide to Rep. Don Young Pleaded Guilty John Albaugh Chief of Staff to Rep. Ernie Istook Pleaded Guilty Trevor Blackann Lobbyist and former staffer for Sen. Kit Bond Pleaded Guilty Will Heaton Chief of Staff to Rep. Bob Ney Pleaded Guilty Todd Boulanger Lobbyist and former staffer to Sen. Bob Smith Pleaded Guilty Robert Carpenter Deputy Chief of Staff, Criminal Division, US Department of Justice Pleaded Guilty Roger Stillwell Desk Officer in charge Marianas Islands, Department of Interior Pleaded Guilty Adam Kidan Business Partner, SunCruz Casinos Pleaded Guilty; Sentenced to 5 years, ten months in prison James Hirni Lobbyist and former staffer for Sens. Tim Hutchinson, Bill Frist, and Jeff Sessions Indicted on one count “conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud” Kevin Ring Lobbyist, Greenberg Traurig Indicted on ten counts Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) House of Representatives; Majority Leader Named in guilty pleas; Under investigation; Retired after the guilty plea of former staffer Tony Rudy Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) House of Representatives Named in guilty pleas; Under investigation; Houses raided by FBI; Retired from Congress Rep. Ernie Istook (R-OK) House of Representatives Named in guilty pleas; Under investigation; No longer in Congress Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) House of Representatives Named in guilty pleas; Under investigation; Defeated for reelection Ed Buckham Chief of Staff to Rep. Tom DeLay; Lobbyist Named in guilty pleas; Under investigation Ann Copland Staffer for Sen. Thad Cochran Named as “Staffer E” in guilty pleas Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) House of Representatives Linked to Abramoff scandal; Defeated in 2006 election; Since acknowledged not under investigation Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) U.S. Senate Linked to Abramoff scandal; Defeated in 2006 election; Since acknowledged not under investigation Ralph Reed Former head of Christian Coalition; Lobbyist Named repeatedly in reports of Abramoff’s Indian tribe swindles; Lost 2006 Lt. Gov. race; Reputation in tatters Susan Ralston Special Assistant to the President; Deputy to Karl Rove Resigned her job; Sought immunity to testify before House committee; Justice Department still reviewing granting of immunity
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Paid Travel Down for Congress
Thanks to those guys, Jack Abramoff and pals, lawmakers are taking far fewer privately paid trips overseas. Newly enacted ethics rules ban lawmakers from accepting travel gifts from registered lobbyists or organizations that employ one or more registered lobbyist. Congressional Quarterly reports that privately paid travel is off 43 percent from last year.Legistorm – which tracks congressional travel – has a neat graphic showing the cost of private travel over time:
(Click through for interactivity.)
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In Broad Daylight: Rangel’s Disclosure Discrepancies
Like a man sinking in quicksand, Rep. Charles Rangel continues, with every flailing day, to sink further as more discrepancies are revealed in his personal financial disclosures. New revelations show Rangel’s disclosures to be in complete disarray. Some assets and transactions are listed at high values one year and then listed at no value the next. The Associated Press compiled a list of the erratic disclosure listings.
The New York Times called on Rangel to temporarily step down from the chair of the Ways and Means Committee barring an ethics investigation. It looks like too many are having flashbacks to the Democratic scandals of the ’80s and ’90s that felled numerous congressional leaders.
The Washington Post takes a look at how business connections fuel bundled political contributions. One major Bush and McCain bundler, John Vogt, calls it the “favor arbitrage business,” where, “You’ve got to know who to ask, how to ask and more importantly, you have to be prepared to return the favor.”
Rep. John Doolittle has been under investigation for a long time – longer than this presidential election – and it looks like Kevin Ring’s indictment brings that investigation that much closer to his door step. Ring is accused of hiding Doolittle’s attempts to find a job for his wife from federal investigators. As McClatchy Newspapers reports, “[Ring's] apparent desire to protect the Doolittles is now figuring very prominently in his legal troubles.”
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In Broad Daylight: There Must Be Some Kind of Way Out of Here
If you’re a lawmaker, or former CIA official, caught in a corruption investigation there are many different ways to get out of trouble:
- “Graymail”: Under indictment and facing trial for corruption and fraud, K. Dusty Foggo, the former number three at CIA caught in the Duke Cunningham investigation, is threatening to reveal classified information related to terrorism in the trial. Prosecutors claim that Foggo wants to turn the trial into a referendum on the war on terror and portray himself as an anti-terrorism hero. K. Dusty Foggo: “Freedom isn’t free, it costs prostitutes for me. And then you get your classified government contracts.”
- “Deny”: Yesterday, TPM Muckraker reported that the indictment of Kevin Ring included information linking Ring’s actions to the office of Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico. Ring is alleged to have provided gifts, including tickets to basketball games, to a staffer in Wilson’s office. Wilson, who also received campaign contributions and a hosted fundraiser, issued a strong denial of any involvement in Ring’s activities.
- “Challenge”: Lawyers for Sen. Ted Stevens have issued a series of challenges and accusations against the government prosecution including a filing on Tuesday stating that the government refuses to turn over certain documents related to VECO CEO Bill Allen’s possible relationship with an underaged girl.
- “Wait it out”: Republicans are calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to remove Rep. Charles Rangel from his post as chairman of the House Committee on Ways & Means. Pelosi won’t budge and instead insists that the House Ethics Committee must first finish their investigation. The call for committee removal seems a bit premature, as I can only remember lawmakers removing themselves, or being removed, after an indictment, guilty plea, or, in the case of Alan Mollohan, when they are the chair of the Ethics Committee. However, I have little faith that the Ethics Committee wil conduct a full investigation by the end of the year.
- Also, CREW released their annual list of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress.
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Full Ring Indictment
The full indictment of lobbyist Kevin Ring is available here part 1, part 2 (via Letter of Apology).
As I pointed out in the previous blog post on Ring’s indictment, the labeled congressmen, Representative 4 and Representative 5, are former Rep. Ernie Istook and Rep. John Doolittle, respectively. The indictment clearly alleges that these two lawmakers willfully and knowingly accepted gifts and travel from Ring and Abramoff in exchange for favors, including the insertion of earmarks for the lobbyists’ clients. Doolittle is even alleged to have said that he felt like a “subsidiary” of Ring and Abramoff’s lobbying firm.
Ring was arrested yesterday and entered a plea of not guilty. The inevitable trial of Ring will likely delay further action against Istook and Doolittle, who, if the indictment is proven accurate are in a whole host of trouble. Ring was cooperating with the government in the investigation until he refused to plead guilty.
For all the gory details in the indictment, check out this ABC News piece.
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Yet Another Abramoff Crony Indicted
The Justice Department unsealed a ten-count indictment today against Kevin Ring, a lobbyist and former staffer to Rep. John Doolittle, in the on-going Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. According to a Department of Justice statement, Ring is charged “with conspiring with Abramoff and others to corrupt congressional and executive-branch officials by providing things of value to several public officials to induce or reward those who took official actions benefiting Ring and his clients.”
The statement also includes two unnamed congressmen, Representative 4 and Representative 5. Ring is alleged to have engaged in illegal conduct with the chief of staff to Representative 4, who is not identified as being either a current or former member of Congress. Previous indictments identify Representative 4 as former Rep. Ernie Istook. His chief of staff pleaded guilty earlier this year.
Representative 5, while not appearing in previous indictments, is readily identifiable. Ring is alleged to have lied about his knowledge of employment opportunities provided to the wife of Representative 5 by Abramoff. Only one sitting member of Congress fits this bill, and that is Ring’s former boss, Rep. John Doolittle.
One line in the statement possibly explains where this investigation is going next:
Ring and his coconspirators allegedly understood that the public officials to whom they provided things of value were failing to report those gifts as required and were filling out false financial disclosure forms, because to fill out the forms truthfully would reveal that they had accepted gifts in violation of ethical rules and federal law.
Looks as though investigators are going the Ted Stevens route in pursuing Tom DeLay (Representative 2), Tom Feeney (Representative 3), Ernie Istook (Representative 4), and John Doolittle (Representative 5).
