SALON

Friday, Mar 5, 2010 6:52 PM UTC

GOP has some ethical questions, too

Republicans are pushing scandals involving House Democrats, but their own members have some as well

By

Topics: 2010 Elections, War Room, Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., U.S. House of Representatives,

This hasn’t been a great week for Democratic claims to be running the most ethical Congress in history. Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., was forced to step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., announced he wouldn’t seek reelection — due to health reasons, but also amidst questions about allegations he sexually harassed a member of his staff. (UPDATE: Massa will now, reportedly, resign on Monday.) 

Still, that doesn’t exactly mean Republicans have clean hands themselves. Democrats won the House majority in 2006 in part by running against what they called a “culture of corruption” in the GOP establishment. The villains in that election — people like ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., ex-Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas and ex-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. — may be gone. But quite a few Republican lawmakers who are still in the House have come under scrutiny of their own. The House Ethics Committee doesn’t confirm whether it’s looking into members, but news reports have made clear ethical questions aren’t only a Democratic problem.

Here are just a handful of members whom you probably won’t hear the GOP talking about quite so loudly as they discuss Rangel in the months before the November elections:

  • Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas: The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Sessions faced questions last year about a $1.6 million earmark he won for an Illinois company to make blimps, even though the company had no experience in the blimp-making business. A former Sessions aide had been paid nearly $500,000 to lobby for the firm. He also appears to have closer ties to disgraced banker Allen Stanford than he’s interested in discussing.
  • Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska: Yes, Young is still in Congress, even though he has been the subject of at least two recent federal criminal investigations. One involved a $10 million earmark for a Florida company Young dropped into a 2006 bill just before it passed; another dealt with a broad investigation into political corruption in Alaska, tied to the (ultimately flawed) case that led to former Sen. Ted Stevens’s defeat.
  • Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga.: Deal is leaving Congress to run for governor of Georgia. But even conservatives have pointed out that he’s also the subject of a House ethics investigation into contracts between a business he owns and the state government.
  • Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.: Blackburn admitted to federal elections officials in 2008 she had failed to report $286,278 in campaign expenditures over her time in Congress, as well as $102,044 in contributions she had never disclosed. Some of the unreported expenditures were payments to her daughter and her son-in-law.
  • Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.: Lewis was investigated by federal agents four years ago as part of the same investigation that led Cunningham to plead guilty to taking bribes. He’s also been investigated for his relationship with a lobbying firm, the clients of which Lewis helped obtain millions of dollars in earmarks.

 

Mike Madden is Salon's Washington correspondent. A complete listing of his articles is here. Follow him on Twitter here. More Mike Madden.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 6 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
344 points345 points | 113 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
59 points60 points | 3 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
34 points35 points | 2 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
33 points34 points | 3 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
39 points40 points | 4 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations