Sometimes congressional seats come fixed with a superstitious quality; a curse, perhaps. North Carolina’s Class 3 Senate seat is famous for only electing one-term senators. No senator has served for more than one-term since Sam Ervin retired in 1974. Now, a spooky air covers Florida’s 16th congressional district as a sex scandal, unearthed by ABC News, has hit freshman Rep. Tim Mahoney. This marks two elections in a row where the incumbent in Florida’s 16th is hit with a sex scandal reported by ABC News just weeks before an election.

During the 2006 elections, ABC News reported that incumbent Rep. Mark Foley was engaged in improper relationships, both on- and off-line, with teenage male congressional pages. Foley resigned his seat immediately. Mahoney’s scandal is a bit different from Foley’s attempts to sleep with teenagers. Mahoney is accused of paying hush money, to the tune of $121,000, to a former mistress and ex-employee who is suing him for wrongful termination after she was fired soon after their affair went sour. Mahoney is also accused of arranging a $50,000 a year job for the woman with a public affairs firm that his reelection committee pays to do advertisements.

For the guy challenging Mahoney this cycle, watch out, ABC News has their eye on you.

What could be more annoying than tens of billions of taxpayer dollars used to bail out a huge, irresponisble corporation, essentially nationalizing the company? That corporation spending that money to lobby the very government that owns a majority stake in it. And that, children, is the story of AIG as told by AIG spokesman Joseph Norton, “We are not a GSE [government-sponsored entity] and are therefore not restricted. We remain a share-holder owned entity and continue advocacy activities.” That is correct, the only problem being that the majority share-holder is the United States government.

Members of Congress are still looking to party for campaign contributions and Party Time is still tracking the fund raising events in Washington. This week we have a Janet Jackson concert, a Browns-Skins game, and a pheasant hunt. I hope that there are no wardrobe malfunctions, Redskins losses, or friends shot in the face at any of these events.

And our friends at Open Congress were profiled on local New York show Brian Lehrer Live. Watch the interview with OC’s David Moore:

OpenCongress.org with David Moore from Brian Lehrer Live on Vimeo.

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The mid-term elections are over and the people have decided that they want their corrupt members of Congress to come back home. In a Bloomberg article today, Rep. Rahm Emanuel states that eight seats flipped due to the corrupt activities of the current, or recently resigned/indicted/plead guilty, occupant. After reviewing the Bloomberg article and the members of Congress tied to congressional scandals it seems that Rahm has presented a lowball number of congressmen sent home. So let’s take a look at these members of Congress who will no longer be wearing the congressional uniform of solid blue suits, American flag lapel pins, and an unfailing arrogance of power.

* Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.): Hayworth’s claim to corruption fame is that he “took at least $56,200 from” Jack Abramoff and used Abramoff’s skyboxes for five fundraisers since 1999. Hayworth did show his sweet side by giving $2,250 of the money he received from Casino Jack to help relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina (because they weren’t getting the money from anywhere else). But Hayworth’s greatest moments came during this, his final election campaign. In a book about illegal immigration that Hayworth released this year he advocated for the “Americanization” program that Henry Ford proposed in his essay “The International Jew.” Then, Hayworth dispatches his aides to a debate at a synagogue where Jonathan Tratt, one of the aides, stated that Hayworth, a Christian, is a “more observant Jew” than any of the actual Jews present. Tratt’s wife was confronted by some of these not-as-observant-as-J.D. Jews and told them, “No wonder there are anti-Semites.” No wonder you’re not a Congressman anymore.

* Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.): Does this guy even need to be profiled? Pombo, chairman of House Resources Committee, which oversees tribal concerns and U.S. protectorates, refused to investigate Jack Abramoff’s corrupt dealings with Indian tribes and the Northern Marianas Islands. Could it have been all the cash Abramoff stuffed into Pombo’s political action committee and campaign coffers? Or maybe it was the skybox tickets for his staffers? Rhetorical questions aside Pombo was known as an instrument of energy corporations and a favorite of former Rep. Tom “Make-my-day” DeLay. Voters got sick of Pombo, the classic Astroturf politician, and his schtick and decided that they’d rather not send a congressman to Washington who is already bought and paid for by.

*Rep. Charles Taylor (R-N.C.): Taylor’s problems did not stem from sharing the name of a genocidal dictator. Taylor did, however, share his signature to help out Jack Abramoff. (Notice a pattern here.) Bloomberg’s Salant writes, “Taylor and [Sen. Conrad] Burns wrote a letter to the Interior Department in May 2003 seeking a $3 million grant for of one of Abramoff's clients, the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. They then included the allocation in a congressional spending measure.” Plus, Taylor seemed more concerned with friends in Russia than about the jobs in his district. Maybe he can look for work in one of those manufacturing factories that Western North Carolina is known for…oh wait, those don’t exist anymore?

*Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.): I think everyone expected Sherwood to choke on Tuesday after he, well, paid a hefty sum to a former mistress who had accused him of choking her. Not much else to say here. The guy’s acting like Wayne Brady on the Chapelle Show; who’s going to vote for that.

*Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.): When your nickname is “Crazy Curt” you know that you’re in electoral trouble. Just weeks before the election Weldon’s lobbyist daughter’s offices were raided along with the offices of a Russian energy company that Weldon had been helping out in his official role in Congress. Weldon has also made wild accusations about the war on terror and about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He even almost went on his own fact-finding mission to Iraq, Indiana Jones style, after refusing to believe that no weapons were found. Weldon’s next stop: a federal court house.

*Rep. Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.): Someone had to pay for the Mark Foley scandal and Sue Kelly wound up being that someone. Kelly, who sat on the page board when Foley was acting like Austin Powers on the Internet, refused to answer questions about Foley’s behavior, ran away from television reporters, and did not show up to a televised debate.

*Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.): Burns was the top recipient of corrupt cash from Jack Abramoff and penned a letter with fellow Abramoff pal Charles Taylor to help secure a $3 million grant for Abramoff’s client, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. Burns also decided to spend his reelection race attacking and cursing out firemen, declaring, a la Nixon, that President Bush has a secret plan to win in Iraq, and making generally racist and stereotypical comments about immigrants. Burns will now get to spend more time with his little Guatemalan friend.

*Reps. Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, and Mark Foley: These guys all already resigned their seats and one them is on the way to jail. Their late replacements all lost their respective elections and there’s no need to go back and review the various misdeeds of these three stooges.

That’s ten seats, nine in the House and one in the Senate, which flipped because of the member’s less than responsible activity. Don’t worry guys; your roster is likely to expand. A December 9^th run-off between Dollar Bill Jefferson and Karen Carter should bring a Democratic member to the team. And let’s not forget the on-going federal investigations into seven members who are going to be sticking around.

I’d like to say it ain’t so, but this team is only going to get bigger.

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Today the Hotline blog reports that scandal may be an important element in this year’s elections after all, something which I have written about here previously. The Hotline blog contrasts two possible narratives for the aftermath of a Democratic victory in the House, scandal vs. wave. If “the Dems win control by only a narrow majority, ethics scandals” affecting FL-16, OH-18, TX-22, PA-10, and NY-26 “will have provided the majority for victory.” However, a wave election would showcase a dramatic shift in the northeast including large GOP losses in upstate New York and the suburbs of Philadelphia. A wave could not be possible without many victories coming from the ethics scandal category itself.

Numerous races are being affected by the Mark Foley scandal and certain incumbents are still fighting hard against allegations of improper contacts with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. These races constitute much more than the aforementioned races. The Foley matter has not only made Democratic pick-ups in FL-16 and NY-26 likely but it is rubbing off onto races in districts that abut Foley’s former district. The open seat in FL-13 vacated by Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Florida, and the seat held by Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Florida, in FL-22 have both shifted in the favor of the Democratic candidate in just this past month. Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, is also finding herself trailing in recent polls as she is attacked by her opponent for being in the Republican leadership and doing nothing about Foley (whether she has any real connection to the matter is another story). Another race seemingly affected by Foley’s misconduct is in the open seat race in MN-06 where Democrat Patty Wetterling has pulled ahead in polls as she has talked about the kidnapping of her son in relation to the Foley’s internet dalliances with teenage boys (Foley’s signature child protection legislation was named after Wetterling’s son). That’s six races that have been significantly affected by the Foley scandal.

The Abramoff issue has been covered here before but we can still go through the races that could swing on the issue. Already former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s district looks like an almost assured pick-up for Democrats. Rep. Bob Ney’s Ohio district looks likely to swing to Democrats as well considering that the Republican nominee was handpicked by the soon-to-be jailed congressman. In California new documents are putting House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., on the spot as he attempts to deny ever meeting with Jack Abramoff. Polls show Pombo and his challenger neck and neck in this conservative California district. Further north is Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., who is also fighting to retain his seat amid allegations of improper dealings with Abramoff. And let’s not forget the Senate seat of Conrad Burns in Montana. Burns looks like a likely loser right now and he can thank Abramoff for providing some of the nails.

Personal corruption and ethics scandals are also affecting individual races. Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa., is suffering in his run for reelection after his mistress filed charges that he tried to choke her. Sherwood has already run one incredibly embarrassing apology advertisement. In New York, Rep. John Sweeney is being hit for his alcohol-related problems including a couple of drunk-driving convictions and a 2004 appearance at a frat party where he was photographed highly intoxicated with amused and equally intoxicated college kids. New Jersey Rep. Mike Ferguson’s late night bar escapades recently became campaign fodder after he allegedly tried to pick-up a young woman at a bar in Georgetown despite being married.

These represent 13 House races and one Senate race where congressional or personal scandals have become central to the individual race narrative. There are also local scandals, in Ohio and Kentucky, which could cost even more incumbents their seat in the Congress. Since the Democrats need to win 15 seats to gain a majority in the House it is highly likely that, wave or no wave, ethics scandals will play a key role in deciding who will control the House in 2007. If power does shift in the House corruption and scandal will be a part of the narrative no matter if the victory is small or big as either one will have required victories that wouldn’t have been possible without public ethics scandals.

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Does it surprise anyone that Rep. Tom Reynolds’, R-N.Y., chief of staff Kirk Fordham informed staff of a top House leadership member of Mark Foley’s internet escapades back in 2004? After Fordham "resigned" his position as the chief of staff he admitted that, "…even prior to the existence of the Foley e-mail exchanges I had more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene when I was informed of Mr. Foley’s inappropriate behavior." As I detailed yesterday nobody should be shocked by the fact that Dennis Hastert doesn’t run a tight ship. In their book, The Broken Branch, congressional scholars Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann explain Hastert’s actions in the Ethics Committee purge of 2005 thusly:

The signals by the Speaker could not have been more clear: take your responsibilities as guardians of House ethics seriously and you will be the ones stigmatized; play the game and make sure that no ethics issues are raised about your party colleagues or are downplayed and diluted, and career enhancement awaits. (pgs 190-91)

What kind of message does this kind of behavior send to members? If you are Reynolds or Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., do you really want to be the one to raise ethics issues forcefully? Even if Hastert and the GOP leadership had any interest in solving ethics issues they could not have referred Foley’s case to the House Ethics Committee because Hastert’s purge knocked the committee out of business.

Hastert’s history of institutional neglect is what places him at the center of this ever growing scandal. Many have already put Hastert’s role as Speaker on a death watch. Let’s see if he can get past this week.

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One of the safest assumptions you can make in the world of politics is that the more money you have, compared to your opponent, the better your chances of winning. But even the safest assumptions are sometimes wrong, and there’s one special case where an abundance of money can do more harm than good: when the voters already know who you are, don’t like you, and find each new commercial an unpleasant reminder of exactly how much they don’t like you.

After all, annoying ads, repeated endlessly, don’t suddenly start working after the 50^th viewing. They only build resentment, and that’s true whether the advertiser is a pain reliever or a political candidate.

Traditionally, political consultants count on their “paid media” – advertising – to overcome any negative spin from the less controllable “free media” – news coverage. But sometimes the roar of that free media overcomes even the heftiest advertising budget, and this is one of those times for House Republicans.

There’s still another month to go before Election Day and, as we all know, anything can happen. But absent a distraction as significant as a major terrorist attack, the image of Mark Foley hitting on teenage pages – and the lack of action by the GOP leadership to contain him – could loom as large in November as it does today.

If that’s so, no amount of money can rescue the party on Election Day. Certainly the great majority of incumbents – Democrats and Republicans – will still be reelected in November. But in the close races, the ones where those extra advertising dollars were supposed to assure a close-enough win, the original script is no longer likely to work.

Voters are often willing to look past personal failings in their political leaders, if they’re humble enough about it. But hypocrisy is the one unforgivable sin. Mark Foley has already paid the price for that – or at least started paying. House Speaker Dennis Hastert may be next. But the biggest casualty is likely to be the Republican majority in Congress.

They’ve staked their fortunes on those famous “values” voters who care as much about public morality as they do about trade deficits, the price of gas, or even the war in Iraq. Such voters are not amused by the latest headlines from Capitol Hill, and they’re not likely to forget – no matter how many ads they see between now and Election Day.

That’s a tough problem for GOP strategists and it will be interesting to see how they react. This is one time when the time-honored solution – throwing more money at the problem – just isn’t going to work.

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The Mark Foley scandal has engulfed the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. Today the conservative Washington Times called for the Speaker’s resignation and Majority Leader John Boehner reiterated that Hastert had told him that the matter would be taken care of earlier this year. Hastert was once said to “take this laissez-faire attitude on things”. This is evident in the Foley case, but it is also clear from his history as Speaker. Hastert, not acting like a good coach, seems to let problems fester or he actively works to cover them up. It comes as no surprise that his stewardship of the House has come under fire due to the revelations of the Foley scandal.

Looking back on Hastert’s rule as Speaker you can find numerous instances where he not only did not take the lead but led Congress in the wrong direction.

March, 1999: Hastert’s rise to Speaker attracts swarms of Washington lobbyists. In a departure from former Speaker New Gingrich’s fundraising in Southern and Midwestern states Hastert “has begun offering industry lobbyists the kind of deal they like: private audiences where, for a price, they can voice their views on what kind of agenda the 106th Congress should pursue.”

1999-2006: Earmarking under Hastert’s leadership explodes. In 1999 there were only 2,838 earmarks. In 2005 there were 13,997. That is nearly a 400 percent increase in earmarking.

June, 2003: Hastert holds a fundraiser at Jack Abramoff’s restaurant Signatures and collects $21,500 for his Keep Our Majority PAC. Seven days later Hastert signs a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton along with the rest of the House leadership in support of one of Abramoff’s tribal clients. The letter was written by Abramoff’s lobbying team. Hastert’s campaign committee and PAC took in well over $100,000 from Jack Abramoff and his clients throughout the years.

November, 2003: The vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill was held open for three hours as Hastert and the Republican leadership tried to switch votes to pass the bill. Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was later admonished by the House Ethics Committee for “inappropriate behavior” when he offered support for the candidacy of retiring Rep. Nick Smith’s, R-Michigan, son in exchange for Smith switching his “nay” vote to “yea”. Hastert talked to Smith fours times during the three-hour vote. Independent political observers have widely claimed that the three-hour vote was an extreme abuse of the legislative process.

November, 2004: Hastert engineers a rule change that protects the leadership post of the ethically challenged Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, in case he is indicted on felony charges for his role in the 2003 Texas redistricting.

November, 2004: Hastert announces a policy whereby he will rule by a “majority of the majority.” This policy states that “Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them.”

February, 2005: Hastert purges the House Ethics Committee of Republicans who voted to admonish Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and replaces them with top dollar recipients of DeLay’s PAC’s largesse. The Ethics Committee shuts down in protest of Hastert’s actions.

August, 2005: Hastert secures a $207 million earmark to build the Prairie Parkway though his district. The earmark would significantly raise the price of land that Hastert had recently purchased through a trust that was not properly disclosed in his personal financial disclosure statements.

Fall, 2005: Hastert’s office is warned of inappropriate e-mails sent by Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fl., to underage male pages.

November, 2005: Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa., settles out of court with his former mistress on charges that he choked her. Sherwood continues to serve in the House.

December, 2005: Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist sneak language into a Defense Department spending conference report that would give “the Secretary of Health and Human Services the ability to suspend the ability of the public to file liability claims against vaccine manufacturers if he or she determines that there is an imminent threat of a pandemic viral outbreak.” The inserted language would be worth billions of dollars for foreign drug makers in the event of an outbreak.

March, 2006: Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., tells Hastert directly about the inappropriate e-mails sent by Rep. Foley to underage pages.

May, 2006: Hastert launches an attack on the FBI for raiding the offices of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who is under investigation for accepting bribes and accused of hiding subpoenaed material in his congressional office. After demanding that the documents be immediately returned to Jefferson’s office Hastert reaches a deal with the FBI to have the documents reviewed by Jefferson and Justice Department officials.

Spring, 2006: Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, talks to Hastert about the inappropriate e-mails. Hastert assured Boehner that he would “take care of it.”

September, 2006: Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, pleads guilty to accepting bribes from lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Ney has not been forced to resign by Hastert and the leadership and still retains his seat in the current Congress.

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When the Rep. Mark Foley sexual predation scandal broke last week I thought that this would just be another sex scandal. The member resigns in disgrace, end of story. However, Foley’s Internet advances on teenage pages revealed an institutional corruption created by a leadership that favors protecting electoral majorities over protecting children from predators. The House leadership also is shown to have a disdain for pursuing investigations of any kind. This scandal continues to show that unethical behavior has not been pursued by the leadership for fear of losing their slim congressional majority.

This scandal erupted in a matter of days. You can’t say that the House leadership couldn’t have figured this out and dealt with this last year when ABC News took a couple of days to get to the bottom it. Matt Yglesias explains this point, “The difference is that when ABC News and others saw smoke, they went looking for fire. They investigated. When Hastert and co. saw smoke, by contrast, they decided to turn off the smoke detectors and hope the house didn’t burn down until after the midterms.” It is always possible that Speaker Hastert was too involved in other activities at the time to pay much attention to this festering problem of sexual predation. 

Snark aside, this disdain for investigating and desire to protect potentially unethical action by members has a history under Dennis Hastert. When Tom DeLay faced multiple admonishments from the House Ethics Committee and a potential indictment for his role in the Texas redistricting the House leadership did not attempt to solve the issues of his unethical and possibly criminal behavior. Instead they changed the rules to protect his leadership position and purged the Ethics Committee of members who had voted to admonish. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, is still holding office despite pleading guilty to accepting bribes. He has not been asked to resign.

Look at the initial reaction to the Jack Abramoff scandal. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in 2005, “From everything I’ve heard, again, from the comments and responding to those, is everything he’s done was according to the law.” Tom DeLay stated that Abramoff “has never been on my payroll.” Tony Rudy and Michael Scanlon were, however, on DeLay’s payroll. Only one committee in both houses of Congress, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee conducted an investigation into Jack Abramoff’s illegal activity prior to the super-lobbyist’s guilty plea.

The Foley case follows that exact same formula as these other scandals. Hastert and top House leadership members (Tom Reynolds and John Boehner) knew about allegations last year and did not pursue them. They also did not discuss the issues with minority Democrats on the page board and ABC reports that Democratic sponsored pages were not warned about Foley’s “friendly” behavior while Republican sponsored pages were. Now, shockingly, top Republicans and House leadership are trying to defend and deflect this scandal. White House press secretary Tony Snow has stated that these were “simply naughty e-mails,” the National Republican Congressional Committee has stated that they “would gladly accept Mr. Foley’s money [$2.7 million] or part of it to devote to House races,” and former Speaker Newt Gingrich claims that if Foley had been investigated last year the investigators would have been accused of “gay bashing”. 

It should be strongly noted that there is no current House investigation into the matter. Hastert is undertaking an internal review, but this is not a real investigation with members of the minority party involved. While the scandal has been referred to the House Ethics Committee no formal investigation has begun. In fact, the House, after spending a whopping 93 days working in Washington, is now out of session as congressmen have scurried back to their districts to campaign. Clearly, this scandal highlights an inability by the current House majority to police its own members and to conduct any kind of serious investigation (seriously, it took ABC two days to figure this one out).

Dennis Hastert ought to face much of the blame for his inaction and inattention to problems. Chuck Todd and John Mercurio of the Hotline explain Hastert’s lack of action perfectly, “Hastert is notoriously slow when encouraging a wounded member of his party to get going. From Tom DeLay to Bob Ney, Hastert never seems willing to push members into what needs to be done. Now, in all three recent cases (DeLay, Ney and Foley), the member eventually did the right thing — but at a politically painful pace.

Hastert, for better or worse, is an institutionalist. …he allows the system to work even when it appears the system doesn’t work very fast, and unfortunately for him, very well.”

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