Final Acts Of Power

Outgoing House Ethics Chair Doc Hastings (R-WA) delayed until the very last minute having the Committee report on a Jack Abramoff junkett that implicated Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) or a $23,000 "gift" of travel for Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA). Feeney's trip took place in August 2003; Weldon's, in January 2003. There have been two Congressional elections since these infractions occurred -- two instances where voters were unaware that their Congressman had committeed ethics violations, because Hastings dragged his feet.

In a terse statement (one paragraph) released 3 January (the Democrats take over on the 4th), Hastings and Ranking Minority Member Howard L. Berman (D-CA) report that Feeney did not comply with House rules. However, all will be forgiven if Feeney gives the US Treasury the $5,643 the trip is reported to have cost.

Feeney went to the Ethics Committee in March 2005 (18 months after the event). He said he thought "a conservative think tank - the National Center for Public Policy Research - was paying for the trip that included a few rounds of golf at legendary St. Andrews."

The Weldon statement has slightly more info than the Feeney one. The important bit is here:

As a result, the payment by the trip sponsors for the attendance on the trip of several family members of Representative Weldon was prohibited by the gift rule, which at the time permitted such payment for only the Member’s spouse or child. We therefore concluded in the middle of this year, and advised Representative Weldon, that he was required to repay to the donors certain expenses of that trip, which exceeded $23,000.

"Concluded in the middle of this year" -- huh? If the committee made this conclusion in June or July of 2006, why wait until now to reveal the decision?

The lag is SOP for this committee under Hastings. In October 2005, he said the Committee wasn't going to puruse a 15-month old ethics complaint involving then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), because of a "lack of resources."

Technorati Profile