The GOP ethics mess
WASHINGTON
ON THE Richter scale of political scandals, the two that have recently rocked Republicans -- the bribery schemes of convicted GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff and the online sex escapades of former representative Mark Foley of Florida -- are strikingly different, yet House leaders have come under fire for their handling of each.
Both the sprawling federal influence-peddling probe starring Abramoff, which has led to six other convictions including that of Republican Representative Bob Ney of Ohio, and the scandal featuring Foley and his e-mail dalliances with young male pages have created huge ethics headaches for GOP leaders. And in both scandals, House leaders have received poor marks from other members, pollsters, and GOP operatives for their cavalier attitude toward ethical matters.
``The majority party has been faced with the problem of governing with both these scandals and they've failed miserably," according to one GOP operative. ``It's all been an exercise in self preservation as opposed to doing the right thing and voters are telling pollsters they don't like what they see. With both these scandals there was a large effort to cover up, not to cooperate, and to sweep them under the rug."
Little wonder that recent opinion polls suggest that voters are increasingly concerned about ethics issues and corruption. A Gallup-USA Today poll released on Oct. 10 found that corruption in government was rated as extremely or very important by 86 percent of likely voters, topping all other concerns save Iraq, which drew the same percentage. A
In responding to the Abramoff scandal, GOP leaders on a few occasions have displayed a tin ear or arrogance. Consider Abramoff's January 2006 plea agreement to three felonies, one of which was conspiracy to bribe public officials and in particular Ney.
In response, House leaders first embraced the need for serious reform measures, but then backed off: House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, for instance, quickly called for a ban on private travel -- including the kinds of lavish golf junkets to Scotland that Abramoff famously hosted for Ney and former House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who left Congress in June after two of his former top aides pleaded guilty in the Abramoff scandal.
Hastert was soon undercut when the new House majority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, called such a ban ``childish." A much-watered-down reform bill that passed the House contained no ban -- only a cosmetic suspension of such trips through June 2006. A slightly stronger bill passed the Senate, but Congress failed to enact either measure.
Republican Representative Chris Shays of Connecticut, a longtime backer of campaign finance and lobbying reforms, told me in early 2006 that he was dismayed about the House's weak response to the Abramoff scandal. ``We're not a reform-minded Congress. This is a Congress that belittles reforms, that thinks the public doesn't care. . . I think we set out to change Washington, but Washington has changed us."
The GOP leaders' insensitivity to ethics was palpable in September, when Ney agreed to plead guilty to two felonies including a conspiracy charge: Ney's plea indicated that he offered legislative favors to Abramoff and his clients in exchange for meals at the lobbyist's restaurant, tickets to sporting events, and a lavish golf outing to Scotland in August 2002. After quickly denouncing Ney's misconduct, the GOP leadership left it up to the congressman to decide whether to resign, which he declined to do. Finally, after Ney pleaded guilty on Oct. 13 and again declined to immediately resign, House leaders issued a statement that if he wasn't gone by the time Congress returns after Election Day, he would be expelled.
House leaders have seemed equally as obtuse in their handling of the Foley scandal. Since it hit the news late last month, Boehner and Representative Tom Reynolds, Republican of New York, have said they informed Hastert of the problems months ago, but those warnings don't seem to have registered with him -- or at least Hastert has said he can't recall them. The House Ethics Committee, which was somnolent during most of the Abramoff scandal, is now looking into the handling of the Foley matter by various members including the speaker's office.
In another case of ethics avoidance, Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, who was one of three members charged with overseeing the page program, never told his two congressional colleagues about concerns regarding Foley's sexually suggestive e-mails when they were first brought to him almost a year ago.
House leaders' inept responses to the Foley issue have dismayed GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who wrote in this week's Time magazine that the Foley scandal might be ``the final straw" for disillusioned GOP voters ``not as much because of what Foley did, but because of how the congressional Republican leadership handled it, or, shall I say, mishandled it."
If history is a guide, such strong doubts about the GOP leadership's ethical acumen may well loom large at the polls: Two of the biggest shifts in Congress in recent decades, in 1974 and 1994, occurred, respectively, in the wake of the Watergate and the House banking scandals.
Peter H. Stone is author of ``Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies and the Buying of Washington" and a staff correspondent for National Journal. 
