Democratic blogger Josh Marshall is wondering about the tepid Democratic reaction to Abramoff.
As a political party, you can’t run on corruption if you’re not running for reform. But as near as I can tell there is no Democratic reform proposal in Congress. Maybe this or that representative or senator has some proposal, but nothing that the opposition party in any way, as a whole, has gotten behind.
So where’s the plan?
Today, the Democrats made a proposal – for an investigation.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, said lobbyists had multiplied by the thousands in recent years to the point where there were now 63 of them for every lawmaker. She said they were using their campaign donations to influence policy and even write laws.
Slaughter called on the House ethics committee to investigate corruption cases involving lawmakers with links to Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who pleaded guilty this week in a U.S. corruption probe.
“The House ethics committee, after a year of inaction, must get to work immediately to investigate pending ethics and corruption cases in the House, including those involving members with ties to Jack Abramoff,” she said in the Democrats’ weekly radio address.
Let me make a few suggestions. I do think that this is an opportunity for the Democrats – as the party out of power – to make a stand. I don’t delude myself enough to believe that they will make enough of one to radically change the dysfunctional, corrupt system in place.
But there is an opportunity to make things better.
How do they get enough public support? Simple. Make it clear that it is a sea change in the way the Democrats do business, and that it isn’t simply a convenient stick to get Democrats closer to the trough.
Start by picking the most corrupt members of the Democratic party and busting them.
John Moran (D-MBNA) comes immediately to mind.
Once they show a willingness to clean their own house, they’ll own the political high ground and will be able to make a case that what they are interested in is drying up the rivers of cash, not just getting themselves a bigger spot on the bank.
The toughest part about running as a reform party is that it places under some obligation actually to reform. Here in Illinois after a generation of Republican governorship and actual scandal and political corruption the scene was ripe for reform and, sure enough, a Democrat was elected on a reform platform. The idea that the son-in-law of a Chicago alderman would actually achieve much in the way of reform was incredible, however. SSDD.
My cynicism and outrage have taken over. Internally the money for candidates at the Presidential level is driven by business; business having become successful in stifling the labor movement in most places-an aside here the TWU in NYC has done a wonderful job. They are unwilling to buck their hollywood liberal money so they make no association with what is left of the working class where natinal security issues and social ones collide-these people are in a state of denial about Republicans watching out for their economic interests. Clinton’s triangulation has been destroyed by the jealous factor; Democrats want the same thing as De Lay-their wives act just the same as the Republican’s. As a consequence there can not be any outrage or a desire to clean up because what they want are the simple things in life power, prestige and money. All the attributes of a slush fund and in OZ this is all that matters because they are what is needed to get elected.
The problem is not lobbyists but that we have too much government influence over who wins and loses in business.
I had a post giving an example but it STILL won’t let me post. This content filter MUST go IMHO.
I think you mean Jim Moran (for whom there are more reasons than this to go).
My cynical self suspects it’s because the Democrats know this won’t be exclusively a Republican scandal, and, ironically, they just can’t handle the nuance involved. For all their carping claims that President Bush has a ‘you’re either with us or against us’ attitude, it’s the Dems who seem to have become the party of absolutes. Bush Derangement Syndrome has countless of them twisting logic and morality into pretzels to deny him credit for anything good he does and assign him blame for everything bad that happens. The party chairman announced (to resounding cheers) that he ‘hates Republicans and everything they stand for.’ They’ve decreed a raving, Jew-hating egotist has ‘absolute moral authority.’ Daily Kos has no time for such minor issues as scruples or integrity, he’s all about winning. Dems like Lieberman who stray from the party line are practically tarred and feathered.
Denouncing one (or more) of their own would mean admitting they’re not perfect, and the mere thought is intolerable.
You are conflating two separate issues here that are only related in the broadest of senses.
First is the Abramoff scandal, which is about a CRIMINAL enterprise, organized by REPUBLICANS, to funnel money into campaigns in direct exchange for access and influence.
The second issue, which you seem to want to use the Abramoff scandal to highlight, is the general pollution of politics by lobbyists and “special interest” donors and politician who dance too close to the ethical (and legal in many cases) boundary on their behalf.
I’m not sure whom you are trying to reach with this (admittedly noble) effort, but unless you make clear that you recognize this distinction and articulate your position on the Abramoff scandal (beyond the simplistic-and incorrect-notion that it equally affects both parties) I don’t think anyone in is going to take seriously your views on the second.
Think of it as a way of providing calibration to your views on this.
Dems have an opportunity to say:
1. The system of too much government gatekeeping on deciding business winners and losers generates corruption.
2. Ending as much as possible the gatekeeping function on deciding the business winners and losers ends the corruption.
3. Where gatekeeping cannot be eliminated as much as possible constant transparency and open competition should negate corrupt tendencies.
This is structural reform, and offers great distance from the other party. It’s more than just “our guys are marginally less corrupt than theirs” because it offers a clear and different structural approach to limit corruption.
I am not optimistic this opportunity though will be seized. It requires a large gamble and break from established practices. McCain-Feingold was dumb IMHO because it simply tried to keep money out of the process by legislation instead of changing the process fundamentally so that money doesn’t try to enter into the process in the first place.
Andy,
The commenters who suspect that the problem for Democrats is the bipartisan nature of the Abramoff scandal are dead on. Welcome to the real world. Enjoy your stay.
Joe,
I don’t think he has unpacked for a stay yet.
My question was directed at Armed Liberal.
Andy, I think that you’re raising a false dichotomy. L’affaire Abramoff is a couple of things…criminal acts by Jack, certainly, some of which involve lobbying activity. Criminal acts by those he gave money to…not so sure yet. And while he was a Republican, and certainly centered his personal ideology and power around the Republican Party, he managed to spread his lucre across both partys pretty effectively (note that Rep. Kennedy sees no reason to return the donations that Abramoff sent his way…). He’s the current most egregious example of what I’m complaining about, and will be seen as such by most of the voting public, in spite of Kos’ fevered dreams.
A.L.
Andy, nice grasp on DNC talking points. If this is just a “CRIMINAL enterprise, organized by REPUBLICANS, to funnel money into campaigns in direct exchange for access and influence”, then the 47K Abramoff gave to Harry Reid (Democratic minority leader from Nevada- no interests in Indians, gaming, or Indian gaming) were becasue- what? Reid is a sharp dressed man? In any case, there’s no cause for Reid to return the cash, right?
The Republicans deserve to lose big on this in 2006 if they don’t clean house, but the Democrats don’t deserve to win unless they come up with real ideas for reform.
AL
Given your belief, then, that Abramoff represents a bipartisan problem, why does your proposed solution only involve the Democrat party?
As I’ve stated, this scandal does not equally implicate both parties. Receiving contributions from tribes that were also represented by Abramoff is NOT equivalent to “taking money from Abramoff.”
“Kennedy was never lobbied by Abramoff or any of his associates and he did not receive any checks from Abramoff, Richardson said.”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010401420.html
I’m sorry you don’t want to see the distinction.
But for the moment let’s carry on with the idea that perhaps you do really want to see a Democratic congress in 2007 (although I’m not sure this is fully supported by your writing here in the past few months that I’ve been coming). I can see the simple allure of your suggestion that Dems get ahead of this issue and clean out there own house and/or make some bold proposal that goes beyond McCain/Feingold in a meaningful way.
In addition, perhaps you are of the opinion that, in order to improve their electoral success, the Democrats need to find a big issue to take a principled, high profile stand on. And your interest in money and politics suggests that the Abramoff scandal fits the bill.
But you must recognize the political implications of your suggestions.
First, if only the Dems undergo house cleaning and not Republicans, then public assignment of guilt might shift (inaccurately) toward the Dems, since their efforts will be more visible. In other words, this effort at catharsis could backfire.
Second, a unilateral anti-lobbying proposal is not likely to be enacted in a Republican-controlled congress. It could therefore be viewed as an example of political opportunism and not reform (and the press and RNC will be very good at promoting this interpretation). So what kind of effect do you think this might have on the ability of the Dems to raise money? Yeah, not so good.
Perhaps you do not recognize the reality that each party operates in a very different public information media environment. Republicans have better control over the media than Dems. This is not because their message is better or simpler (in fact on many big Republican issues, most Americans disagree).
So, unless BOTH PARTIES come together on this (like McCain-Feingold) then it would be political suicide for the Dems to try to do this on their own. And this could even further set back (or effectively kill in our lifetimes) efforts to rid politics of corrupt money and influence peddling.
Therefore, IMO, your prescriptions for the Democrats could very well harm not only the party but also the country.
Here’s what I’d like to see:
1) Abramoffgate is fully investigated and all politicians involved are prosecuted to the extent of the law. From both parties.
2) Dems and Republicans come together to craft new legislation on lobbying.
Personally, I am willing to trade any short-term Democratic political advantage for REAL long-term reforms on this issue, because, as I’ve said, I agree with you that it is one of the biggest problems with our system at the moment.
I’d like to know if you agree with this last statement.
Andy,
As far as I know (and I could be wrong), the criminal charges against Abramoff are about instances where he defrauded his clients by using their money to ends other than the lobbying efforts that they thought they were paying for.
To most people, myself included, there’s a similarity to nailing Al Capone on income-tax evasion.
However, the ugly and inconvenient facts would seem to be that the activities that gained Abramoff his noteriety–his lavish and sleazy lobbying for special interests–are both legal and business-as-usual in Washington DC circa 2006.
Granted that Abramoff‘s slime is likely to stick to more Republicans than Democrats, for Willie-Sutton reasons. But your comment #13 seems tailor-made for Democratic johns to use once they’ve told how they are “shocked, shocked” on learning what goes on inside the brothel. I have full confidence that their Republican bretheren will come up with something nearly as plausible, as the band plays on.
I wish I was doing more than heckling from the peanut gallery. Beyond wishing for more ethical politicians and for the return of a notion of ‘shame,’ it’s hard to see how to restructure the money-politics connection without stifling political speech a la McCain-Feingold.
AMac;
The current charges against Abramoff “also include a conspiracy charge for his effort to influence at least one member of Congress and a Congressional staff member.”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/politics/03cnd-abramoff.html?hp&ex=1136350800&en=7c71b0ec003f73a8&ei=5094&partner=homepage
I believe it is illegal for a politican to take money directly for a vote (this amounts to a bribe), but this almost always impossible to prove. Unless of course you have a highly organized system in place to do just that, and the central figure in such a scheme has decided to comply with the investigation.
So when Abramoff begins to sing, well-documented, prosecutable connections could be uncovered.
But I say let the chips fall where they may. My concern, however, is that a “highly-partisan Assistant Atty General”:http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alice_S._Fisher is running the investigation. So I’m not optimistic about the outcome.
Andy,
Thank you for the correction and the supporting citation. Although I don’t know much about this subject, it does still seem the case that “unusual,” “unethical,” and “illegal” conduct are three different things when it comes to the interactions of lobbyists with legislators and their staffs. Is Abramoff’s influence-peddling different in degree or in kind from what transpires routinely?
This is unfortunately a cynical (and easy and lazy) position to take–and hopefully a misinformed one as well. It’s not clear to me that the McCain-Feingold type of campaign finance reform solution doesn’t create a bigger problem than the one it aims to solve, by creating the legal and bureaucratic wherewithal for regulation of political speech. One can hope for better alternatives, and more sunlight surely is a good start.
I’m glad AMAC has the sincerity (or stupidity) to say what I was thinking. I too may be misinformed, but as to the lobying issue, what is the difference between Ted Kennedy taking campaign contributions from teacher’s unions and Brownback taking campaign contributions from the Christian coalition? They take the money and they support the legislation. We can kid ourselves that the Senators’ positions are principled and the money comes later to support the principle, but there are many ways to be pro-union or pro-life and the money clearly gives the lobyist access to help write the details.
What seems to be different with indian gaming is that a lot of Americans (myself included) simply don’t care. I know this is a bigger issue in some parts of the country, but since indian affairs are federal issues, the hapless lobyist has to make people from unaffected parts of the country care. So the lobyist throws around money, gets an audience and gets some votes from people who don’t have a set principle on the matter.
What am I missing?
PD Shaw,
Sincerity, stupidity–do I have to choose or can I take both? In the meantime, check the NYT description of the plea agreement that Andy provides in #15. Even if (perhaps my ignorance talking again) Abramoff’s conduct was different only in degree, what’s described is pretty despicable, and contrary to ideas of what representative government ought to be about.
One obstacle seems to be “I know unethical conduct when I see it.” That’s not a useful guideline for a politician’s conduct; everybody will have different ideas for what crosses the line. And given the high costs of the “constant campaign,” successful congresspeople (etc.) are going to tend to be those who tread where the morals get at least a little fuzzy.
But that gets contrasted with these sets of regulations of dollar values of gifts, meals, etc., that seem to be designed to be circumvented. I wish I had a better answer, though in the meantime it’s hard to feel sorrow when the misdeeds of somebody like Abramoff come back to lay him low.
I’d be interested in pointers to “insiders’ views” of this scandal, e.g. contrasting the behavior of these lobbyists and representatives with how the rest of Capitol Hill regularly acts.
AL
I would be more worried about the abetting murders whom run your page than the fact people are worried about why you are asked why is your solution only for Democrats. I watche Joe Katzman too as he is always carping on military toys for a battle yet to be fought: According to a leading Democratic Senator, “Secretary Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense have repeatedly failed to comply with Section 351 of Public Law 108-375, which requires the implementation of a reimbursement program for members of the United States Armed Forces who have been forced to purchase their own body armor or other protective, safety or health equipment for use in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Senator Chris Dodd is trying to do the right thing by these soldiers. The best thing would be to get them out of Iraq, but these soldiers are there on Bush’s, Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s call — and they were sent without adequate defenses.
Dodd is looking for stories from soldiers who purchased their own armor in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Associated Press has found some angry soldiers who resent buying their own body armor:
“Your expectation is that when you are sent to war, that our government does everything they can do to protect the lives of our people, and anything less than that is not good enough,” said a former Marine who spent nearly $1,000 two weeks ago to buy lower-body armor for his son, a Marine serving in Fallujah.
The father asked that he be identified only by his first name — Gordon — because he is afraid of retribution against his son.
“I wouldn’t have cared if it cost us $10,000 to protect our son, I would do it,” said Gordon. “But I think the U.S. has an obligation to make sure they have this equipment and to reimburse for it. I just don’t support Donald Rumsfeld’s idea of going to war with what you have, not what you want. You go to war prepared, and you don’t go to war until you are prepared.”
Under the law passed by Congress last October, the Defense Department had until Feb. 25 to develop regulations for the reimbursement, which is limited to $1,100 per item. Pentagon officials opposed the reimbursement idea, calling it “an unmanageable precedent that will saddle the DOD with an open-ended financial burden.”
In a letter to Dodd in late April, David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel, said his office was developing regulations to implement the reimbursement, and would be done in about 60 days.
I think that there are many Republicans and Democrats who are outraged by the poor treatment of soldiers during Rumsfeld’s tenure. I can’t imagine that John McCain or Chuck Hagel aren’t as angry as Chris Dodd.
Read the rest at the Washington Note or the NYT
Andy, the problem is that if the Democrats finger-wave at the GOP only (as you are when you claim that it’s a “Republoican scandal”) it becomes a tu quoque and will be ignored.
They have a choice…they can use it as a stick to hit the GOP, in which case it will be a weak one, and little will happen; or they can use it as a lever to start a real change, which will require that they start by cleaning their own house.
A.L.
Completely off-topic, Robert. Including your usual despicable slander about “abetting murders”.
PD Shaw
That a line appears to have been crossed that makes it much easier to suspect that “contributions” (legal) turned into “bribes” (illegal).
“The criminal charge against Scanlon shows that the lawmaker of most immediate interest to prosecutors is House Administration Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio). Prosecutors charged that Scanlon and Abramoff conspired to bribe Ney — referred to in the charging document as “Representative #1” — by providing him and staff members with a golf trip to Scotland, sports tickets, meals, and campaign contributions.
From Ney, prosecutors allege, Scanlon and Abramoff “sought and received” a series of official acts, including meeting with clients, sponsoring legislation and approving a license to install wireless communications in the U.S. House for an Abramoff client.
“Scanlon presumably is in a position to say that it wasn’t just ordinary assistance of a neutral or innocent character, that it was a quid pro quo, that if you vote a certain way or introduce a certain bill, I will pay you money or give you a brace of tickets to a Washington Redskins game. That is the way a case is proved.”
The above is a quote from “this WaPo article.”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111900937.html
AL;
I must admit, it is a bit frustrating to ask someone to flesh out their positions more fully and be given only a re-worded abstract of their original post in reply.
In this case you completely fail to address my criticism for why I think your suggestion is political folly at best and counterproductive to the cause you wish to champion at worst.
1) You really don’t think the solution is as simple as Dems “cleaning house” in an effort to capture the moral high ground on this, do you?
2) Would you be willing to trade any (potential) short-term Democratic political advantage for bi-partisan long-term reforms on this issue?
Andy, I apologize for my terseness…it’s been a busy weekend and shaping to be a busy week.
I’ll try and flesh out my points as I have time – I think this is an extremely important juncture.
But the short versions is a) yes, it is important to take the moral high ground; and b) I’d have no problem at all trading short term D advantage for a truly bipartisan movement to clean things up – but I don’t see a path down which that actually happens. I’m open to suggestions, however.
A.L.
Thanks for the links Andy. I have to say my introduction to this scandel was this “chart in the Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2005/12/12/GR2005121200286.html which was about campaign contributions. I imagine this chart is how most Americans see this issue.
I’ve now read the “indictment”:http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20060103_ABRAMOFF_DOC.pdf (pdf) linked in one of the WAPO articles above. This sentence I found particularly interesting:
bq. *[Abramoff conspired] to corruptly give, offer, and promise things of value, including money, meals, trips and entertainment, to public officials and their relatives with the intent to influence, and in return for agreements to perform, official acts benefitting defendant ABRAMOFF, Scanlon and their clients, in violation of 18 U.S.C. secs. 201(b)(1), 1341, 1343 and 1346*
A few observations:
* Not alleging quid pro quo bribery. He gave things of value in order to obtain influence, and with that influence he intended to seek agreements from the public official.
* The reference to relatives might be important. In other places the indictment mentions things of value being given to staff members. Its possible to interpret these allegations as claiming that Abramoff gave things of value to people close to a public official, giving an indirect benefit to the public official. Are our laws strong enough to prevent such indirect bribery?
* The things of value seem pretty small, with the exception of a golfing trip to Scotland — the kind of gifts that I thought public officials might legally receive if they report it. Nothing like a 19th century toilet. The indictment says Abramoff gave a “stream of things of value” though. Does gift giving (if allowed) need to be eliminated completely?
AL;
I hope I’m not badgering you by asking for one additional point of clarification.
When you say “pick a corrupt Dem and bust them”, what do you mean by bust?
Because I’m now thinking that your suggestion may not be such a bad one, since I have come up with a scenario that may avoid at least one of the pitfalls I raised above.
One way to “bust”, perhaps, would be for the Dem leadership to publicly call out a fellow Dem who is alleged to have taken questionable donations. Ask them to return the money to it’s source.
But to minimize the political risk, they should try to find someone who is not up for election this year, or who represents a heavily blue district or state.
I’m wondering if there’s anyone that fits the bill?
And would they be willing to go along with this public chastising?
And if they did not and decided to rebel, how would that affect the ability of the Dem party to carry out its “efforts to enact lobbying restrictions?”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/08/AR2006010800686.html
You can see the risks/problems associated with this kind of proposal once you play out the possibilities.
I think if Dems decided to call out corruption in their party, the party would explode. Likewise for the Republicans. Both parties have been teetering on the edge of ruin for some years now, taking all the money they can possibly suck into their accounts. Ousting the ‘most wicked’ members would immediately begin the blame game, and accusations would fly wildly. Not that it would be all bad, it would be nice to see all this muck come to the surface/
I think they’ve gotten away with it because of the building ‘us vs. them’ mentality, which keeps their voters in line as long as they can point to the corruption of someone else. This system is added by a pollitical 1/2-1/2 ‘ethics’ committee, which ensures that no ethics charges will ever be brought up against anyone.
I read ralph Nader’s book last year, after the election, especially the parts about how the parties have really sold themselves to special interests. When I told my parents (who are kool-aid Dems) about that, they said “well, that’s easy for him to say, he doesn’t have to win an election”.
“well, that’s easy for him to say, he doesn’t have to win an election”.
LOL.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Nader advocate public financing of all elections? Taking all the critisms to their logical conclusion, that’s what needs to be done. Is the cure (state control over elections) worst than the disease?
“I read ralph Nader’s book last year, after the election, especially the parts about how the parties have really sold themselves to special interests.”
Special interest translating to ‘that organized group of the oppositions base that bother to pressure their politicians’. No-one calls their own supporters special interests. Just constituents. Campaign finance refotm is one of those situations where the cure is worse than the disease. When did it become a dirty thing for citizens to group their resources and pressure their politicians to carry out their will? When campaign law jurryrigging made it inordinately useful. Let everyone give however they want to whomever they want. Just make it all very public and available for all to see.
Here’s another, interactive version of the lobbying-bucks information on the WaPo chart that PD Shaw gives in #26, above. It’s from the webzine “Capital Eye.”:http://www.capitaleye.org/abramoff_recips.asp?sort=R
Mark Twain had it right – “We have the best Congress money can buy.”
When politicians control what is bought and sold the first thing bought and sold is politicians.
The problem is structural.