The only way they can get things passed.....BRIBES
Inquiry Sought in House Vote on Drug Plan for Medicare
February 2, 2004
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 - A leading House Democrat has called on
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to initiate an ethics
investigation into accusations of bribery during last
November's vote on the new Medicare drug plan, warning that
Democrats will conduct their own inquiry if the House
leader does not act.
In a Jan. 20 letter to the speaker, Representative Steny H.
Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip, said an
investigation by the House ethics committee was needed to
protect the reputation of the House after Representative
Nick Smith, Republican of Michigan, said groups and
lawmakers had offered support for his son's Congressional
campaign if Mr. Smith backed the measure, which passed 220
to 215.
"Until such time as the committee renders its own
conclusions on the matter, the House will operate under a
cloud of public suspicion," Mr. Hoyer wrote in his
five-page letter.
Mr. Hoyer said a failure by Mr. Hastert to request an
inquiry would leave "no alternative but for individual
members" to seek one, a move that would shatter an
unofficial truce the parties have observed in recent years
after ethics complaints were wielded as political weapons
in the 1990's.
Republican officials said the Hoyer appeal smacked of
politics and suggested Democrats were using the ethics
process to try to score election-year points in their
effort to regain the House majority. A spokesman for Mr.
Hastert, Republican of Illinois, said the speaker did not
intend to ask for an investigation, saying the decision
should be left to the ethics panel, led by Representative
Joel Hefley, Republican of Colorado.
"If Mr. Hefley and the committee think this is an important
allegation, they will take a look at it, no doubt," said
John Feehery of the speaker's office. He added that it was
Mr. Hastert's hope that the ethics process "remains
depoliticized."
Mr. Hefley has said he does not intend to pursue the Smith
allegation because no lawmaker has filed a formal request
for an investigation. Republicans have called the charges
surrounding Mr. Smith overblown.
But Mr. Hoyer, in an interview, said the accusations first
made public by Mr. Smith himself were serious and credible
and transcended any "understanding" the two parties shared
on House ethics matters. Mr. Hoyer said that he agreed with
the view that the ethics process should not be tainted by
politics but that the House could not abandon its
responsibility to police itself.
"Whether you are a lawyer, an accountant or a corporation,
we have found that the failure of institutions to regulate
themselves, to address problems internally, inevitably
results in a loss of respect and of trust and in some cases
brings the intervention of a third party," he said.
Mr. Hoyer's letter is the latest example of growing unrest
with what Democrats see as heavy-handed Republican
operation of the House and a failure to rein in
questionable behavior by some members. House Democrats have
said they intend to make Republican stewardship an issue in
this year's campaigns.
The Smith incident arose from the difficulty the Republican
leadership had in winning approval of the Medicare plan in
the early morning of Nov. 22, when Mr. Hastert kept the
usual 15-minute voting period open for almost three hours
until he and his lieutenants could round up a majority. Mr.
Smith, a conservative opposed to the drug coverage plan
because of its costs, was approached by lawmakers,
including Mr. Hastert, who tried to persuade him to switch.
But he refused.
In a column on his House Web site after the vote, Mr. Smith
said he had been offered "extensive" campaign support and
endorsements for his son, Brad, who is running to succeed
him, as well as threats of retribution against his son if
he did not back the bill. In a radio interview, Mr. Smith
put the figure for campaign aid at $100,000. After an
uproar over his comments, Mr. Smith backtracked and said
the offers of support were general and did not include
specific amounts. He did not name the people he said had
pressured him.
The Justice Department has said it would look into the
matter. But Mr. Hoyer noted in his letter that its
jurisdiction could be limited by Congressional speech and
debate protections in the Constitution, while the House
itself has no such restrictions.
Were a Democratic lawmaker to file a complaint, it could
lead to the kind of bitterness that marked the years when
Republicans and Democrats traded ethics charges.
Speaker Jim Wright, a Democrat, resigned from the House in
1989 over accusations he accepted improper gifts and book
royalties. Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, was fined
$300,000 in 1997 over a politically tinged college course
he taught.
Since then, House members have changed the ethics process
to make it harder for outsiders to file complaints, and
lawmakers themselves have shied away from charges.
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