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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This is CREW’s third annual report on congressional corruption. Over the past few years, corruption has become a significant political issue. In the 2006 mid-term elections, exit polls showed that 42% of voters called corruption an extremely important issue in their choices at the polls, ahead of terrorism, the economy and the war in Iraq. Nevertheless, despite the 2006 election and increased media and public awareness of ethics issues, many members of Congress continue to act as if federal laws and House and Senate rules do not apply to them.

Of the 25 members included in last year’s report, ten are no longer in Congress, many losing their seats as a result of their unethical conduct, and another eight are under federal investigation. Those eight, Reps. Ken Calvert, John Doolittle, Tom Feeney, William Jefferson, Jerry Lewis, Gary Miller, Alan Mollohan and Rick Renzi, are again included in this year’s edition, as is Rep. John Murtha, who has moved from the category of dishonorable mention to one of the most corrupt. The remainder of those named last year -- Reps. Roy Blunt, Chris Cannon, Dennis Hastert, Marilyn Musgrave, Pete Sessions and Maxine Waters -- are not included this year, not because their conduct is no longer problematic, but because we have discovered no new information to add to last year’s report.

New to this year’s list are Sens. Larry Craig, Pete Domenici, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Ted Stevens and David Vitter, and Reps. Doc Hastings, Duncan Hunter, Tim Murphy, Steve Pearce, Hal Rogers, David Scott, Jerry Weller, Heather Wilson and Don Young. Of this year’s list of 24, at least 11 are under federal investigation. Two, Sens. Craig and Domenici are under investigation by the Senate ethics committee, and Rep. Wilson may be under investigation by the House ethics committee.

As we discovered last year, the most serious problem is that members continue to use their positions for the financial benefit of themselves, their friends and their families. Earmarks for large campaign contributors are commonplace and many members have traded legislative assistance for personal favors. Perhaps most striking this year is the number of members who have provided incorrect information or failed to include information on their personal financial disclosure forms. Members would do well to remember that lying on personal financial disclosure forms is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in jail under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Although prosecutions have been rare, the Department of Justice and the House and Senate ethics committees should take a stronger stand against members who deliberately provide erroneous information or withhold information on these forms.

Also worth noting is that the entire Alaska delegation is now on the list. Senator Stevens and Rep. Young are both under federal investigation, and an ethics complaint was filed against Sen. Murkowski by the National Legal and Policy Center.

Sadly, despite an election in which Democrats ran on a platform of eradicating the “culture of corruption” and the fact that voters overwhelmingly turned against members with ethics problems, very little appears to have changed. Members of both parties have boasted of Congress’ progress on this front, yet only tepid ethics reforms were passed and no new enforcement mechanisms were added. The bi-partisan House ethics task force, originally charged with reporting back by May 1, 2007, has yet to issue any recommendations, and the ethics committees in both Houses remain loathe to consider the unethical conduct of their colleagues unless, of course, gay sex is involved as we learned watching the Senate Republicans’ radically disparate treatment of the crimes committed by Sen. Craig and Sen. Vitter.

As we said last year, if Congress is not going to police itself – and the evidence continues to demonstrate that it is not – the ethics committees should be disbanded and the charade ended. Thankfully, the Department of Justice does not share Congress’s willful myopia to corruption.

METHODOLOGY

To create this report, CREW reviewed news media articles, Federal Election Commission reports, court documents, and members’ personal financial and travel disclosure forms. We then analyzed that information in light of federal laws and regulations as well as congressional ethics rules.

Footnote: References to companies making campaign contributions are shorthand for campaign contributions by those companies’ political action committees and employees and, in some cases, their immediate families. We are not insinuating that any company named in the report has made contributions in violation of federal campaign finance laws.