Some probably recall House Democrats regaining control of Congress in 2006 as a repudiation of George Bush’s Iraq war.
But the party of Nancy Pelosi also seized on Republican scandals involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Congressman Tom DeLay to make a convincing corruption case.
Pelosi, the House Speaker, famously promised to “drain the swamp” that is Capitol Hill.
Now, a few years later, the issue Democrats rode back into power is coming back to bite them with the prospect of two very public ethics trials of senior members starting in mid-September, too close for comfort to November midterm elections.
Even though he’s 80 and accused of no less than 13 breaches of House rules, former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel shows why no one should be allowed to hang on in Washington for 40 years by refusing to go quietly into the night.
Rangel brushed off President Obama’s entreaty to “end his career with dignity.”
Rangel is accused of a pattern of failing to disclose income and assets and allegedly swapped legislative favors for corporations donating to a center named for him.
Rangel, D-N.Y., denies the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) charges.
Also under fire is Rep. Maxine Waters, a 10-termer from California.
She’s accused of arranging an improper September 2008 meeting between Treasury officials and representatives of a banking association to which she had personal ties so it could beg for a federal bailout.
Waters failed to disclose that her husband served on the bank board and owned stock in it at the time.
Alarmed that five members of Congress were convicted of federal corruption, such as Randy “Duke” Cunningham taking bribes, three more were indicted and a dozen others were investigated by the FBI, Democrats in January 2007 restricted the sorts of gifts and free travel that can be accepted from lobbyists.
A March 2008 bill created the OCE, a bipartisan panel of eight outsiders empowered to investigate sitting members of Congress.
The measure’s backers included an Illinois senator, Barack Obama, who complained in a Washington Post op-ed that Congress needed a watchdog because it couldn’t police itself.
“We cannot change the way Washington works until we first change the way Congress works,” the future president wrote in January 2007.
OCE is headed by a young former Justice Department prosecutor whose white-collar criminal convictions include Jeffrey Skilling of Enron.
An OCE investigation led to Indiana Republican Mark Souder resigning after admitting to an affair with a staffer.
But Congressional Black Caucus members criticize that numerous OCE probes targeted black lawmakers.
Democrats, mindful of damage control in an election year, seem likely to worry less about standing water in the swamp and more about reining in OCE clout.