Courtesy of
By the staff of
Capitol Hill Blue- America, Mark Twain once said, is a nation without a distinct criminal class "with the possible exception of Congress."
- If anything, the Congress of today is even
worse than it was in Twain's time more than a century ago.
- The 535 men and women who make up the House and Senate of the United States include, at best, a collection of rogues, con artists, scofflaws and bad check artists. At worst, they comprise, as Twain once observed, a distinct criminal class.
- Over the past several months, researchers
for Capitol Hill Blue have checked public records, past newspaper
articles, civil court cases and criminal records of members of the United
States Congress. We have talked with former associates and business partners
who have been left out in the cold by people they thought were friends.
- What emerges from this examination is a disturbing portrait of a group of elected officials who routinely avoid payment of debts, write bad checks, abuse their spouses, assault people and openly violate the law.
- They include current Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla),
whose trail of bad debts, lies to Congress and misstatements to the Internal
Revenue Service have spawned a number of investigations. Then there is Rep.
James Moran (D-Va) whose wife has charged him with abuse, who has assaulted
other members of Congress on the floor of the House and is a former
stockbroker whose judgment in trades is so bad he is broke from poor
investments. The list also includes Joe Waldholtz, a con man and husband of
former Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz (R-UT) who kited more than a million
dollars in bad checks and ended up in prison.
- Others, like former Ohio Senator John Glenn,
have driven creditors into bankruptcy because of unpaid debts left over from
aborted Presidential campaigns. Even millionaire Senator Ted Kennedy has
left a trail of unpaid debts from past campaigns.
- In recent years, members of Congress have gone to jail for child molestation, fraud and other charges.
- Our research found 117 members of the House
and Senate who have run at least two businesses each that went bankrupt,
often leaving business partners and creditors holding the bag. Seventy-one
of them have credit reports so bad they can't get an American Express card
(but as members of Congress, they get a government-issued Amex card without
a credit check).
- Fifty-three have personal and financial
problems so serious they would be denied security clearances by the
Department of Defense or the Department of Energy if they had to apply
through normal channels (but, again, as members of Congress they get such
clearances simply because they fooled enough people to get elected).
- Twenty-nine members of Congress have been accused of spousal abuse in either criminal or civil proceedings. Twenty-seven have driving while intoxicated arrests on their driving records. Twenty-one are current defendants in various lawsuits, ranging from bad debts, disputes with business partners or other civil matters.
- Nineteen members of Congress have been
accused of writing bad checks, even after the scandal several years ago,
which resulted in closure of the informal House bank that routinely allowed
members to overdraw their accounts without penalty. Fourteen members of
Congress have drug-related arrests in their background, eight were arrested
for shoplifting, seven for fraud, four for theft, three for assault and one
for criminal trespass.
- Over the next five days, Capitol Hill Blue will take a closer look at some of the more notorious members of America's Criminal Class - the Congress of the United States. We will not run lists of every member who has written a bad check, punched somebody out or been charged with slapping a spouse. Rather, we will examine those whose pattern of behavior suggests a blatant disregard for both law and propriety.
- Part I -- Rep. Corrine Brown: A trail of lies & deceit
- Part II -- Rep. Jim Moran: Virginia's bombastic Congressman
- Part III -- How Newt Gingrich took care of his own
- Part IV -- Sen. Bob Byrd: Playing the Congressional immunity game
- Part V -- A long tradition of corruption and ambivalence
- Congress: America's Criminal Class: Part I
- In just seven years in Congress, Rep. Corrine Brown has eluded creditors, filed false financial disclosure reports and lied to the Internal Revenue Service.
- "She cons people, pure and
simple," says Sheryl Wilson, a former travel agency owner in
Tallahassee who knew Brown. "I don't think she has an honest bone in
her body."
- Rep. Brown has a poor memory when it comes
to remembering her business dealings. The financial records that every
member of Congress is required to file shows the Jacksonville, Florida
Democrat failed to disclose the $40,000 sale of her Tallahassee travel
agency and improperly reported the sale of her Gainesville agency. And she
has omitted other required details from her reports.
- Brown has left a trail of unpaid bills from
businesses she owned in Gainesville, Jacksonville and Tallahassee during the
early 1990s.
In 1994, a consortium of airlines sued Brown for $94,000 in because her company, Springfield Travel Agency Inc., falsified sales reports and did not pay its bills. Delta Air Lines revoked her authority to write tickets because of an unpaid $7,237 bill. She also owed $5,697 to the University of Florida and tried to pay part of the bill with a bad check.
- The IRS also went after Brown for $14,228 in
unpaid taxes and the Whirlpool Corp. had to go to court to try and collect
$10,227 in unpaid bills for appliances.
- In addition, the House ethics committee is
investigating Brown over her dealings with an African millionaire who was
imprisoned on bribery charges. Two committee investigators went to Miami
recently to interview witnesses for that case.
- Brown not only avoids personal
responsibility for her financial dealings, but also routinely violates
congressional rules and the law.
Members of Congress are required to file reports to reveal any potential conflicts of interest. As a member of the House aviation subcommittee, Brown oversees the very airlines that sued her for unpaid bills.
- But Brown not only fails to truthfully report transactions involving her travel business, she also spends money she never reports and buys expensive homes and other items even though she is deeply in debt. Although she recently paid $25,000 for a down payment on a $300,000 townhouse, those who know her say they have no idea where she got the money.
- "Somebody is always bailing her
out," says a former staff member. "You can bet the money came from
sources nobody wants to discuss."
- Members who file incomplete or false reports
face criminal charges under federal law. Republican George Hansen of Idaho
went to prison for 11 months in 1984 and paid a $40,000 for failing to
report more than $300,000 in loans and profits.
- Last year, Brown's daughter received a
$50,000 car from a close associate of the African millionaire who faces
bribery charges.
Brown's financial dealings show a long, consistent record of deceit.
- In 1985, she started a travel agency,
Springfield Travel, while serving as a Florida state legislator. Papers she
filed with the Florida Department of State, listed two prominent state
legislators as her vice presidents-Reps. Doug "Tim" Jamerson of
St. Petersburg and James Hargrett of Tampa.
- But Jamerson or Hargrett say didn't know
they were affiliated with her company until years later.
- "I was somewhat surprised to learn I
was even on the board," said Jamerson, now a Tallahassee lobbyist.
"It would have been nice to have been asked."
- Brown opened the agency's first office in
her hometown of Jacksonville and started a second office in Tallahassee
where she spend most of her time while serving in the Legislature.
- Brown often used the agency to take
advantage of the free trips offered to travel agents.
- "She was always getting tickets to
Aruba and places like that," former employee Ed Curry told The St.
Petersburg Times.
- But while Brown was running off to Aruba on
free trips, creditors were calling to ask why they weren't getting paid.
- Brown occasionally paid her employees in
cash or wrote personal checks to cover payroll, Curry said. More than once,
the paychecks bounced.
- Brown also failed to pay unemployment taxes
to the state. The State Department of Labor filed a $353 state tax lien
against the company. As of last week, the lien had not been paid.
- Even though she couldn't pay her bills,
Brown sought to expand her company in 1991.
- Barnett Bank gave her a $10,000 loan, but
could never get a full accounting of how it was spent. At the same time,
Brown started a new company, Springfield Enterprises, which she said would
resell appliances and seafood.
- Whirlpool Corp. filed suit against
Springfield Enterprises for an unpaid $10,227 bill, saying Brown bought more
than a dozen large appliances and didn't pay for them. Brown finally paid
the bill after the company obtained a judgment.
- But Brown was busy opening other businesses.
In February 1992, she opened Gator Travel at the University of Florida in
Gainesville.
Seven months later, she was five months behind in her rent and owed the university $7,066. The IRS also filed a lien against Springfield Travel for $14,228 in unpaid taxes. Brown, who was running for her first term in Congress, was busy looking for someone to buy the travel agency.
- Two buyers-Melvin Stith, dean of the Florida
State University business school, and Edward Scott II, a Tallahassee
dentist, paid her $40,000 for the agency, according to a contract filed with
the state. Brown did not report the sale on her mandatory congressional
disclosure, which required her to list sales of all assets worth more than
$1,000.
- The cash allowed her to make payments on
some of her debts. The University of Florida got a personal check for the
overdue $8,479 bill. The IRS withdrew the lien against her in March 1993.
- But Brown was soon in trouble again
- In February 1993, she wrote the University
of Florida a check for $1,413 - partial payment for a $5,600 bill.
- The check bounced.
- A month later, Delta Air Lines revoked her
authority to write tickets because of an unpaid $7,237 bill, a move that
effectively put her travel agency out of business (Delta was the primary
airline serving Gainesville).
- Enter three Miami businessmen who were
willing to take over her failing travel agency.
- Emilio F. Torres and his partners at Douglas
Executive Travel agreed to pay Brown's overdue rent to the university and
take over the agency, but the transition to Torres' company took more than
six months because Brown owed the airlines so much money. Finally, the
airlines seized Brown's official ticketing plates and Torres was allowed to
take over the lease.
- Brown, however, lied about the transaction
on her financial disclosure reports to the House of Representatives. Her
1993 report claims Torres bought her agency for an amount between $50,000
and $100,000. Since then, her reports claim she is owed $50,000 to $100,000
by Torres and his partners.
- But Torres never bought Gator Travel. He
just assumed the lease.
- "We didn't buy anything from her,"
he says. "I don't owe her anything."
State records support his claims.
- Torres also did not pay Brown's overwhelming
unpaid debts to the airlines.
- The Airlines Reporting Corp., a consortium
of the airlines that handles ticket transactions with travel agencies, filed
a lawsuit against Brown in U.S. District Court in Washington in September,
1994 (while Brown was running for her second term), saying Brown failed to
pay about $94,000 for plane tickets and lied about her financial
transactions.
Brown eventually paid the $94,000 and the suit was dismissed.
- But Brown never reported the debts on her
disclosure forms. Florida state records show she signed a contract in 1992
taking personal responsibility for the bills.
- Her disclosure forms also fail to show where
she got the $94,000 to pay off the airlines. Her 1994 form said she didn't
have enough money to make the payment.
- Her latest report shows no savings accounts,
no money market funds and no stocks that she could redeem. The only asset
she listed is a Jacksonville condo that she rents.
- Yet she still hasn't paid back the money she
borrowed from Barnett Bank in 1991 and has mortgages on a $110,000
waterfront house in Jacksonville and the $300,000 Alexandria, Va., townhouse
she recently bought with her daughter.
- Nobody seems to know where Brown got the $25,000 down payment for the townhouse. Brown's daughter, a political appointee for the Environmental Protection Agency, said in her financial disclosure report that she didn't have any assets over $1,000.
- "She's always pulling a scam on
someone," says Oliver Roster of Jacksonville, who has known Brown for
years. "Somebody, somewhere, got the money for her. What we don't know
yet is what she had to do or promise to get it."
- Brown also forgot to disclose a $10,000 check she received in 1996 from a secret Wisconsin bank account Baptist leader Henry J. Lyons allegedly used for money laundering.
- The money came from a secret account in Milwaukee that is a focus of charges against Lyons. Federal prosecutors say Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, hid more than $1 million in the account.
- Brown's office did not return phone calls seeking comment on this report.
- (The report was coordinated and written by Capitol Hill Blue publisher Doug Thompson. Contributors include editor Jack Sharp, researcher Marilyn Crosslyn and private investigator James Hargill.)
- Congress: America's Criminal Class - Part II
Virginia's bombastic Congressman Jim Moran: "I like to hit people" - By the staff
of Capitol Hill Blue - Neighbors in the
prosperous Del Rey residential area of Alexandria weren't
surprised earlier this year when police cars showed up at the home of
Democratic Congressman James Moran and his wife of 11 years.
- It wasn't the first time the cops had shown
up.
- "There was always a lot of screaming
going on there," said one neighbor. "They fought like cats and
dogs."
- Mary Moran called the Alexandria police that June night and said her husband was attacking her. The police came, talked to both, and left.
- No charges were filed.
- The next day, Mary Moran filed for divorce,
saying - among other things - that the five-term Congressman had abused her.
- Moran claimed the charges were "trumped
up" and filed a counter suit for divorce the following month.
- But the incident is just the latest violent act by the bombastic Virginia congressman who has a history of bar brawls, physical assaults, threats, intimidation and even fistfights on the floor of the House of Representatives.
- And he has a history of getting away with
it.
- Jay Armington remembers his first and only
encounter with Moran, then mayor of Alexandria, in a bar near the Potomac
River in 1988.
- "He and another guy went from arguing
to shouting to fists in just a few minutes. One of my buddies pulled the
other guy away and I grabbed the mayor," Armington recalls.
- Moran, he said, wheeled around and slammed
him against the bar.
"His cheeks were bulging and he was snorting like a bull," Armington said. "I realized I was looking into the eyes of a madman."
- Arne Wilkens tended bar in Alexandria, where
Moran served as mayor of the city from 1985-1990. He says the Mayor often
got into fights.
- "He was a bully and a thug,"
Wilkens said. "We'd call the cops, but they wouldn't do anything."
- Jonathan Schnapp, a former Alexandria
resident, tried to file a criminal complaint with the Alexandria police
after the Mayor threatened him following an argument outside a city council
meeting. The cops just laughed.
- "They said they weren't going to risk
their jobs by trying to arrest the Mayor," Schnapp said. Schnapp said
he moved out of Alexandria because he felt both the Mayor and the police
department were corrupt.
- Alexandria police refuse to discuss Moran's
tenure as Mayor publicly, but several officers admitted privately that his
behavior would have led to the arrest of "ordinary citizens."
- "The Mayor was clearly guilty of
assault on more than one occasion," said one officer, who refused to be
identified out of fear for his job. "But the word came down. The Mayor
was off limits. Ordinary citizens go to jail. Not the Mayor."
- Winning a seat in Congress in 1990 didn't
change Moran's violent ways. He got into more than one shoving match with
other members of Congress, including Indiana Republican Dan Burton and
California Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
- Moran was an amateur boxer in his youth and
told Washingtonian Magazine that had he not become a politician, he
might have tried professional boxing because "I like to hit
people."
- Supporters of the temperamental Congressman
say he is just a "typical Irish rogue," charming one minute,
belligerent the other.
- "Alexandria likes rogues," says
one political supporter. "The city has a long, colorful history of
flamboyant politicians.
- But political opponents say Moran is a
"violent man, a time bomb who is always ticking and ready to go
off."
- "He's always boiling," says Sam Asrets, a former Alexandria activist who opposed Moran on many issues during his term as mayor.
- "He knows he can get away with this
because there's never any accountability," Asrets says. "He gets
breaks that ordinary people don't get. Had he learned early on that there
would be punishment for his behavior, he would have been a lot better
off."
- Supporters say Moran deserves a break
because his daughter, Dorothy, was diagnosed with brain and spinal cancer
six years ago. The daughter, now 8, has gone into remission, but the Morans
spent more than $15,000 on alternative care on top of $200,000 in insured
treatment.
- However, Moran, who was also a stockbroker
before becoming mayor of Alexandria, is nearly a million dollars in debt
from failed investments and out-of-control spending patterns that go far
beyond what the couple spent on their daughter.
- The financial problems have become a central
part of the increasingly nasty divorce proceedings between Moran and his
wife. Mary Moran, 44, went heavily into debt buying gifts and antiques the
year her daughter was diagnosed with cancer.
- Moran also lost $120,000 in high-risk stock
options and futures contracts in 1995 and 1996, according to his financial
disclosure forms on file in Congress. Two years later, he reported
increasingly heavy debts
- Alexandria public records show Moran more
than doubled the mortgage on his home, from $202,000 to $447,000, and is
frequently late with payments. Moran earns $136,700 a year as a Congressman,
but has more than $7,000 a month in housing and loan payments.
- Ironically, the Congressman sits on the
powerful House Appropriations Committee, which controls the finances of the
nation. He serves on subcommittees overseeing defense and interior
expenditures.
- But the Congressman shows little ability to
control his own finances and increasingly taps his campaign funds to pay
personal bills.
- In her divorce petition, attorneys for Mary
Moran say the congressman has a history of "wasting the family assets
on his stock market gambling." Mrs. Moran seeks $25,000 in support and
possession of their home. She says her husband "has wasted marital
funds on the excessive purchases for unnecessary items."
- Moran played the stock market and lost. He
wiped out earlier stock holdings and used income tax refunds as seed money,
losing $34,000 in more than 80 trades in 1995. In 1996, he lost another
$93,000 in more than 100 failed trades.
- Even though the stock market was booming,
Moran risked his money on high-risk, potentially lucrative futures and
options trading, seeking higher profits by trading on the direction of
general market index funds, as well as on an array of U.S. and foreign
technology and industrial stocks. He lost it all.
- As his losses mounted, Moran borrowed
heavily against both his Alexandria home and a vacation home in King George
County, VA. The two mortgages amount to more than $600,000.
- Both loans came at above-market rates from
MBNA Consumer Services Inc., a finance operation that makes high interest
loans to high-risk customers.
- Moran has tried, and failed, to sell both of
his houses over the past 18 months. Public appraisals put the value of both
homes below the amount that the Congressman owes on his loans.
- Congressional disclosure forms also show the
Morans tripled their credit card debt from 1993 to 1997 and now owe more
than $45,000 on the cards. Moran also has borrowed the maximum against his
congressional retirement fund -- $20,000.
- Moran sold his car in 1996 and turned to his
campaign fund to lease a car for his personal use, according to his campaign
financial statements. While other members of Congress use campaign funds for
a car in their districts far from Washington, Moran's actions have raised
eyebrows in Congress.
- He also tripled his reimbursement requests
from the campaign in 1997--an off year for elections--for meals and gifts,
increasing the amount the campaign pays from $4,000 in 1995 to more than
$12,000 in 1997. Aides say he is increasing his use of campaign funds to pay
such expenses.
- "The campaign now pays for a lot of his
personal expenses," says one former staff member. "It has to. He's
broke."
- Although the Morans refuse to discuss their
finances or personal lives, attorneys for Moran told The Washington Post
earlier this month: "The Morans, like millions of Americans, made
investments. Mr. Moran used the knowledge he acquired as a stockbroker
during the 1980s. Unfortunately it didn't work out."
- Moran has moved out of his home and is renting a residence in Alexandria. He plans to run for a sixth term in Congress in 2000.
- (This report was coordinated and written by Capitol Hill Blue publisher Doug Thompson. Contributors include editor Jack Sharp, researcher Marilyn Crosslyn and private investigator James Hargill.)
- Congress: America's Criminal Class - Part III
By the staff
of Capitol Hill Blue
By the staff
of Capitol Hill Blue- In early May, Senator Robert C. Byrd, a longtime and powerful Democrat from West Virginia, was following a van too closely on U.S. Route 50 in Fairfax, Virginia, when the van stopped for traffic.
- Byrd's 1999 Cadillac slammed into the rear of the van. It took a tow truck more than an hour to pry the vehicles apart.
- Byrd's car was not drivable and suffered an estimated $7,000 in damage. The driver of the 1990 Ford Econoline van, Chris Lee, 42, a house painter from Fairfax, said he didn't hear any sounds indicating that Byrd hit the brakes or swerved.
- "Just boom," Lee said.
- The Fairfax County police officer who investigated the accident had started to write the 81-year-old Senator a traffic ticket when Bryd pulled a copy of the U.S. Constitution out of his pocket and pointed to a section that he said the cop prevented the cop for ticketing him for anything because he, as a member of Congress "shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest" both while attending a session and traveling to or from the Capitol.
- Byrd spokeswoman Ann Adler says the Senator, an acknowledged Constitutional scholar, "almost always has one (the Constitution) in his pocket."
- Byrd was taken to the nearby Fair Oaks police station where the shift commander put in a quick call to Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan. Horan told the cop that if the Senator wanted to claim Congressional immunity for the ticket, the cops would have to honor it. With everything else that had happened in Washington in recent months, a traffic accident probably couldn't be classified as "treason, felony or breach of the peace."
- Horan said he was familiar with the immunity clause -- Article 1, Section 6, of the Constitution -- because he had encountered it once before during his 32 years in office. Another member of Congress, also from West Virginia, invoked the clause to escape a speeding ticket 20 years earlier.
- The constitutional provision was written in 1781 to protect members of Congress from harassment as they traveled across the country (usually by horseback), and to discourage people from trying to prevent the members from casting unpopular votes.
- Constitutional scholars say that while the law has little use in modern times, it is often used by Washington area police as a way to avoid arresting members of Congress.
- "It's a common misconception that it (the law) prevents ticketing," says Georgetown University professor Paul Rothstein. "Police departments in this area are frequently under that misapprehension. I think it's a way to do a favor for people of influence and stature, but it does smack of unequal treatment under the law."
- And such unequal treatment is often invoked. A study of public records with police departments in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia show 217 members of the House and Senate escaped ticketing and arrest last year for a variety of traffic offenses ranging from speeding to driving while intoxicated.
- In the 1998 Congressional session, 84 Representatives and Senators were stopped for drunken driving and released after they claimed Congressional immunity.
- "I've stopped Senators who were so drunk they couldn't remember their own name," says one Fairfax County police officer. "And I was ordered to let them drive home."
- During late-night Congressional sessions, Representatives and Senators often spend time between votes in the private Republican and Democratic clubs or any of a dozen other Capitol Hill watering holes. One Capitol Hill police officer says he has had to jump out of the way more than once to avoid being run down by a drunken member of Congress roaring out of a House office garage.
- "But there's not a damn thing I can do about it," he says, "Not if I want to keep my job."
- Sgt. Joe Gentile of the D.C. police admits city police do not issue traffic tickets to senators and representatives while Congress is in session. Alexandria and Montgomery County claim members of Congress receive no special treatment for traffic violations, but records show 47 members were released without tickets last year. Arlington and Prince George's county refuse to reveal their policies, but records show members are rountinely released without charge in both counties.
- Members of Congress feel no compulsion to obey the law. District of Columbia police issued 2,912 parking tickets to cars owned by members of Congress in 1998. None were paid. The financially strapped District, which actively pursues and "boots" cars belonging to ordinary citizens, does not go after members of Congress.
- But Representatives and Senators are not the only privileged class in Washington. More than 20,000 foreign nationals living and working in National Capital area carry cards issued by the U.S. Department of State that grants them "diplomatic immunity" from arrest and prosecution.
- "Some may feel immunity from traffic tickets is not a big deal, but it's significant of a culture that breeds contempt for the rules that other citizens must obey," says retired Southern Illinois University political scientist George Harleigh. "A culture that allows tolerance for breaking minor laws breeds indifference to larger violations."
- For years, members of Congress exempted themselves from many of the laws they passed for the rest of the country. Most bills carried a statement that said, "Exempted from the provisions of this act shall be the legislative and executive branches of the federal government." The exemptions allowed, among other things, members to work employees for long hours without overtime or to discriminate on the basis of sex, political affiliation, age or other reasons.
- The federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) can shut down a private company for safety violations, but OSHA has no jurisdiction over Congressional buildings and inspectors are not even allowed on Capitol Hill.
- Changes made after Republicans took control of Congress in 1995 were supposed to bring Congress into compliance with the laws that governed the rest of the nation, but those who work on the Hill say little has changed.
- "Congress is America's last plantation," says former GOP staffer Jonathan Luckstill. "Staffers are still used to run personal errands for members, women staffers are hired on the basis of looks and can be fired on a whim," he says.
- "There really isn't much recourse," Luckstill adds.
- Sometimes, however, recourse comes through hindsight. A week after he claimed Congressional immunity for his traffic accident, West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd's staff contacted the Fairfax County police and told them to reissue the ticket.
- So the cops again called Commonwealth's Attorney Horan.
- "I said, if you can waive your rights under the Fifth and Sixth amendments you certainly can waive your rights under Article One, Section Six," Horan said "If the senator wants his day in court, he's entitled to it."
- So the Senator got his ticket and appeared in court on July 19, pleading "no contest" on a charge of failing to keep control of his car. The judge levied $30 in court costs, but Bryd was not fined, a sentence that observers said was unusually light for a Fairfax County traffic court that is known to be tough on first-time offenders.
- Even when he tried to act like a normal citizen, a member of Congress still got a break.
- (This report was coordinated and written by Capitol Hill Blue editor Jack Sharp with assistance from researcher Marilyn Crosslyn and private investigator James Hargill.)
- Congress: America's Criminal Class - Part V
A long tradition of corruption and ambivalence By Doug Thompson
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue- From the time they arrive in Washington, newly elected members of Congress are told they are something special, an elite class.
- "You have reached a special place in life and in American history," Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi told a recent class of freshmen Senators and Congressman. "Treat it with respect."
- But too many members of both the House and Senate treat their "special place in life and in American history" as a license to steal, living large at taxpayer expense, ignoring laws that apply to ordinary Americans and betraying the trust of the public that put them there.
- Does the heady atmosphere of Congress turn honest men and women into a criminal class? Or is elected office simply a magnet for those who lie, cheat and steal for a living?
- It could be a little bit of both, say political scientists and Constitutional scholars.
- "There's no doubt that politics attracts the glib, the fast talker and the con artist," says retired Southern Illinois University political scientist George Harleigh. "It's a natural place for those who think fast on their feet."
- Congress has always had its share of rogues and scoundrels:
- · Adam Clayton Powell, the fast-talking Harlem Congressman who was re-elected even after Congress expelled him in 1967. Powell had survived charges of income-tax evasion (with a hung jury) even before his first election to Congress.
· Wes Cooley, the Oregon Congressman who lied about serving in the Korean War, quit Congress under a cloud in 1996, and was later convicted of falsifying VA loan applications.
· California Congressman Walter Tucker, who quit Congress in 1996 just before his conviction for accepting $30,000 in bribes and sentenced to 27 months in the federal pen.- Congressmen have gone to jail for child molestation, bribery, fraud, misuse of public funds and various crimes and misdemeanors. Some have resigned in disgrace: Wayne Hayes because he put his mistress on his payroll as a secretary (she couldn't type) or Wilbur Mills because he messed around with a stripper.
- Yet Gary Studds of Massachusetts seduced a young male House page, defied the House when it censured him and was re-elected several times. But Dan Crane of Illinois had sex with a female page, cried and begged forgiveness on the floor of the House and lost his next election.
- Rep. Barney Frank, also of Massachussets, is the most openly-gay member of Congress and shared his Washington townhouse with a male prostitute who ran a homosexual whorehouse out of the residence. But that didn't stop him from winning re-election easily or serving as the primary Democratic defender of Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
- "Congressional corruption has no party, no ideology and no gender," says Constitutional Scholar Alan Baker. "It's bipartisan and soaked in history and tradition. It also often defies logic."
- Sociologist Sandra Reeves believes public perception of widespread corruption among elected officials is one of the reasons for the widespread ambivalence over Bill Clinton's sex and money scandals.
- "If the public felt Congress was an honest institution, there might have been more outrage over the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal," Reeves says. "But many people felt that the people investigating the President were just as dirty."
- Harleigh agrees.
- "Right when the Republicans were trying to prove malfeasance on the part of the Clinton administration in accepting campaign contributions from foreign sources, they have one of their own (Congressman Jay Kim of California) convicted of doing the same thing," Harleigh says. "But instead of sending him packing, they embrace him and talk about what a great guy he is and how important he is to Congress and the party. What kind of message does that send?"
- Congress is nearly always slow to act against its own. It took the Senate three years to investigate and finally get rid of serial sexual harasser Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon. Many of Packwood's Republican colleagues defended him right up until the end.
- "The leadership of both Houses of Congress needs a serious wake up call," says Baker. "You can't preach morality and family values while you wink and look the other way when one your own breaks the law."
- Andrea Wamstead knows far too well how Congress works. She worked on the Hill for nearly 20 years before leaving to get married earlier this year.
- "It's a game to a lot of members," she says. "Under the House rules, a Congressman doesn't have an expense account, per se. But he can be reimbursed for constituent expenses, so he simply tabs his regular meals as 'meals with constituents' and gets his office budget to pay for them. The game is all about how to get around the rules."
- House rules also prohibit the paying of bonuses to employees, but Members get around this by raising staff member's salaries by 100 percent or more for one or two months.
- In 1983, California Congressman Bob Dornan went to Grenada with a delegation to review the American military intervention of the Caribbean island. He tried to leave the island with a stolen Russian AK-47 in his suitcase, but the weapon was discovered by U.S. Military Personnel and confiscated.
- "He threw a royal hissy fit," says retired Army Sgt. Andy Mackie, who was on Grenada at the time. "He kept ranting and raving about how he was a Congressman and if he wanted an AK-47 we had no right to take it from him." The Army kept the weapon and destroyed it.
- In 1982, former New York Congressman Norman Lent tried to have 50 counterfeit Rolex watches sent to him from Taiwan. When customs officers in Baltimore seized the shipment, Lent called the Director of the Customs Service on the carpet and demanded to know why his watches were taken. The director stood his ground and the watches were destroyed.
- "We're talking about a culture of 'I'm better than everyone else' and 'I don't have to answer to anyone,'" says Baker. "It is pervasive and it has been part of the Congressional culture for a long time. You may hear a lot of talk about accountability and reform, but it simply is not happening."
- Even when a new member of Congress arrives in Washington, full of idealism about doing a good job, he or she is soon sucked into the system.
- "When members get together in the Republican and Democratic cloakrooms, they don't talk about legislation or issues," says former GOP House staff member Jonathan Luckstill. "They brag about how much money they have raised for their campaign or how they conned a trade association into an speech invitation to a convention in Hawaii and turned it into a weeklong vacation. I've had more than one boss come back to me and want to know why I wasn't getting him a speech invitation to Hawaii."
- Luckstill says the indoctrination also teaches new members that a crime is only a crime when the other party commits it.
- "If a Democrat is caught breaking the law, that's justice," he says. "But when a Republican is charged, it's politics."
- Capitol Hill Blue asked political scientists, Constitutional professors and sociologists is they thought the system could be changed. All agreed it would take drastic steps.
- "I'd start by cutting Congressional salaries in half and limiting House and Senate sessions to 60 days a year," says Harleigh. "Congressional service should be just that - service, not a career."
- Baker says candidates for Congress should have to be screened like any prospective employee.
- "They should have to undergo extensive background checks as a requirement for candidacy, both criminal and financial. Financial disclosure requirements should be strengthened," he adds. "Voters shouldn't be asked to hire somebody on a promise."
- Baker would also like to see an independent Congressional ethics committee that has the power to investigate members without control by either party in Congress or the White House.
- "Have the committee answer directly to the Supreme Court," he says.
- Baker admits his ideas would drive other Constitutional experts up the wall because they violate the checks and balances system that is supposed to exists between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, but adds that the Supreme Court alreay exercises control over Congress through its ability to declare laws unconstitutional.
- "It would require some changes in constitutional definition, but that might be what is needed to bring the system under control," he adds.
- Reeves advocates term limits for both members of Congress and their staffs.
- "Some of the staff members on the Hill have been there longer than any member of Congress," she says.
- Most members of Congress claim term limits isn't the answer. The voters, they say, impose term limits. But they also know that nine out of all ten incumbents will be re-elected in any given election.
- Term limits was part of the "Contract with America" that Newt Gingrich and the Republican used to help win control of Congress in the 1994 elections.
- However, the GOP soon forgot about term limits when they took control and several members who vowed to serve only three terms in 1994 are running for fourth terms in 2000.
- "There's a good reason they call it Potomac Fever," says Baker. "It's contagious and leads to all kinds of problems."
- Many on Capitol Hill feel the system must be changed, but few agree on how it should be done.
- As Winston Churchill once said: "Democracy is the worst form of government imaginable - except for all other forms."
- (Capitol Hill Blue editor Jack Sharp, researcher Marilyn Crosslyn and private investigator James Hargill contributed to this report.)