History > 2006 > USA > House of Representatives (IV)

Campaign 2006

Open Seats Lift

Democratic Hopes in the House

October 21, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

GOLDEN, Colo., Oct. 19 — Ed Perlmutter, a former Democratic state senator, has had other opportunities to run for the House seat representing the district around Denver, but he waited until this year, when the Republican incumbent decided to run for governor rather than seek re-election.

“It is a clean slate,” Mr. Perlmutter said about the appeal of a race without an entrenched office-holder. “It gives people a real shot at seeing who the right guy is.”

In the age of gerrymander, the open seat — one where incumbents step aside because of age, ambition, scandal or other considerations — is a rare but sometimes golden opportunity for one party to wrest control from the other. This year, Democrats like Mr. Perlmutter are taking full advantage, giving their party a potentially vital edge in the battle for control of the House.

“I hate open seats,” Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in an interview last month as he discussed his party’s difficulties in defending its openings.

Deprived of the name recognition, fund-raising and other powers of incumbency — not least the ability to steer federal dollars into local projects — candidates trying to defend open seats for their parties can have a much harder time of it than do sitting members of Congress.

This year, there are 33 open House seats, including three that are vacant at the moment but had been held steadily by one party, and polls suggest that Democrats have a good chance to capture enough Republican-held districts to put them well on their way to tilting the balance of power in Washington.

Surveys show Mr. Perlmutter in command of his race against his Republican opponent, Rick O’Donnell, in the contest to succeed Representative Bob Beauprez, a Republican who is running for governor.

In races for 20 other Republican open seats, recent polls show the Democrat leading in at least 8, putting the party more than halfway to the 15 seats needed to capture the House. Just one of 12 Democratic open seats appears at risk, and even that is considered a long shot.

The state-of-play shows why leaders of both parties pleaded with incumbents who were contemplating leaving the House to stick around, begging them to pass up career changes, more time with the grandchildren or a run for the Senate.

Grabbing open seats has proven critical in past Congressional realignments. In the watershed election of 1994, House Republicans converted 22 Democratic open seats; in the Watergate election of 1974, House Democrats flipped 13 Republican seats. Now, for Democrats to seize the majority, the open seats will be crucial. “You have to win the open seats by a rather substantial proportion because, unless you have a nationalized race, the incumbents are going to win,” said John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute.

It is a testament to the partisan makeup of most Congressional districts that even with such a strong political tide running against the Republican majority, Democrats are still trying to assemble enough victories to gain control of the House.

But Colorado’s Seventh, which ranges from industrial Commerce City through bedroom communities to the old Gold Rush town of Golden, is a textbook swing district drawn to foster competition. Mr. Perlmutter was considered a top prospect for the new seat in 2002, but said he decided not to run to tend to a young family and a law practice. In 2004, Mr. Beauprez was solidly ensconced, but when he started publicly pondering a run for governor in 2005, Mr. Perlmutter got serious about a race.

The benefits of incumbency can be both large and small — from visibility and the ability to help individual constituents to an aura of political invincibility that discourages challenges and keeps donations flowing.

Mr. Perlmutter, who represented part of the House district as a state legislator, still had to win a tough and expensive primary to get into the general election, though it ultimately helped raise his profile. Mr. O’Donnell, a lifelong resident of the district who lost a primary to Mr. Beauprez in 2002, escaped a primary this year. But he quickly discovered he had work to do to become known.

“Over the summer, I would knock on people’s doors, and they would say, ‘Who are you? What are you running for?’ ” Mr. O’Donnell said. “A couple hundred thousand dollars in TV ads takes care of that.”

In their closely watched race, Mr. O’Donnell has sought to emphasize a hard line on immigration and raise the specter of Democratic tax increases while Mr. Perlmutter has pressed the need for change in Republican-controlled Washington and emphasized stem-cell research, an issue he has personalized, saying it represents the potential for treatment of his daughter’s epilepsy.

If there were a year not to be an incumbent, Mr. O’Donnell argues, this is it with the Republicans he hopes to join in the House facing an electorate anxious about the war in Iraq, frustrated with the Congress and angry over constant scandal.

“This year, I am thrilled to be an open-seat candidate,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

Yet Mr. Perlmutter and his Democratic allies have worked to tie Mr. O’Donnell to the Bush administration and an unpopular war. In doing so, they have saddled Mr. O’Donnell with the disadvantages of incumbency while he lacks the long-term relationship with district voters that might help a sitting lawmaker.

In a new advertisement broadcast this week by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on behalf of Mr. Perlmutter, a beaming Mr. O’Donnell was shown leaving Air Force One with President Bush as the president arrived for a fund-raising visit this summer. “Another vote for George Bush’s agenda,” says the advertisement.

Mr. O’Donnell and his aides acknowledge that in the Denver area, where snow is already falling this year, it is tough sledding for Republicans. “I am under no illusions,” he said. “It is going to be painstaking, vote by vote by vote.”

Republicans hardly needed added trouble in a year when the party controlling the White House traditionally suffers. But their task was greatly complicated by the departure of three veteran lawmakers in safe seats who exited under ethical clouds and left their local ballots in shambles.

Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader under indictment in Texas, quit after winning his primary and state Republicans lost a legal fight to replace him on the ballot, forcing them to put their hopes in a difficult write-in campaign. The name of Mark Foley, who resigned over sexually explicit e-mail to former pages, will remain on the ballot in his Florida district, though votes cast for him will go to another candidate. Representative Bob Ney of Ohio, who recently pleaded guilty to corruption charges, dropped out of his race but left his replacement contending with the fallout from his bribery scandal. Democrats could conceivably win all three seats.

In Arizona, Representative Jim Kolbe, who is retiring, refused to endorse the conservative Republican who won the primary to replace him, putting Republican retention of that seat in jeopardy. In Colorado Springs, Republican divisions over the candidate to succeed Representative Joel Hefley, who is retiring, have national Democrats examining whether to make a serious run at that solidly Republican seat.

“In a year like this, the only Republican open seats that are certain to stay Republican are rock-solid, overwhelmingly Republican districts,” said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan Congressional handicapper.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee just bought advertising time in the race for a Nevada open seat that was previously considered out of reach, and party strategists are looking into investing in others where Republicans are showing signs of weakness.

“We are trying to figure out the combination on the lock of the gerrymandered districts,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, campaign committee chairman.

Republicans are fighting back, spending on television advertisements for Mr. O’Donnell and others in open seat races. But they are also being forced to spend in places like Idaho, where they had expected to avoid a fight. Party officials predict that in the end, many of the seats will remain in Republican hands.

Open Seats Lift Democratic Hopes in the House, NYT, 21.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/us/politics/21colorado.html

Editorial

A Dangerous New Order

October 19, 2006
The New York Times

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step.

Not satisfied with having won the vote, Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, quickly issued a statement accusing Democrats who opposed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 of putting “their liberal agenda ahead of the security of America.” He said the Democrats “would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans’ lives” and create “new rights for terrorists.”

This nonsense is part of the Republicans’ scare-America-first strategy for the elections. No Democrat advocated pampering terrorists — gingerly or otherwise — or giving them new rights. Democratic amendments to the bill sought to protect everyone’s right to a fair trial while providing a legal way to convict terrorists.

Americans will hear more of this ahead of the election. They also will hear Mr. Bush say that he finally has the power to bring to justice a handful of men behind the 9/11 attacks. The truth is that Mr. Bush could have done that long ago, but chose to detain them illegally at hidden C.I.A. camps to extract information. He sent them to Guantánamo only to stampede Congress into passing the new law.

The 60 or so men at Guantánamo who are now facing tribunals — out of about 450 inmates — also could have been tried years ago if Mr. Bush had not rebuffed efforts by Congress to create suitable courts. He imposed a system of kangaroo courts that was more about expanding his power than about combating terrorism.

While the Republicans pretend that this bill will make America safer, let’s be clear about its real dangers. It sets up a separate system of justice for any foreigner whom Mr. Bush chooses to designate as an “illegal enemy combatant.” It raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening. It further damages the nation’s reputation and, by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Conventions, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle.

In the short run, voters should see through the fog created by the Republican campaign machine. It will be up to the courts to repair the harm this law has done to the Constitution.

    A Dangerous New Order, NYT, 19.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19thu1.html

Bob Ney, Guilty but Still at Capitol

October 19, 2006
The New York Times
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 — Representative Bob Ney is headed to prison early next year after pleading guilty to charges of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in illegal gifts from lobbyists. Until then, Mr. Ney, a six-term Republican from Ohio, has a comfortable place to bide his time.

His Congressional office — the one that he has effectively acknowledged selling to the highest bidder — is open for business.

“The office of Congressman Bob Ney,” his telephone receptionist said in a cheery voice Tuesday morning, as if nothing had happened to her boss, the first member of Congress to confess to crimes involving the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Mr. Ney’s brass nameplate still hangs on the wall next to the heavy wooden doors of Room 2438 in the Rayburn House office building, just across the street from the Capitol, and it is likely to remain there for at least a few more weeks.

On Wednesday, much of his staff in Washington apparently worked a half-day, typical for Congressional offices during the pre-election recess. Mr. Ney’s lawyers said the locked doors this afternoon did not mean the office was closed permanently.

The day before, the lawmaker’s aides could be seen wandering in and out of his offices with regularity, all barred from commenting on Mr. Ney’s whereabouts or how he is spending his time. “We’re not allowed to talk with you,” said a young female staff member, clutching a stack of what appeared to be constituent mail.

In his guilty plea last week, Mr. Ney admitted to taking many gifts from Mr. Abramoff, including a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland by private jet, and then lying about them in his financial disclosure forms.

To the dismay of House colleagues eager to remove him as a symbol of the corruption scandals that are tarring several Republican candidates in next month’s Congressional elections, Mr. Ney, defying House leaders, has refused to step down for now, insisting that he owes his staff and his constituents a few more weeks of his time.

Until the House reconvenes after the elections, there is no way under Congressional rules to force him out. Republican House leaders have vowed to make Mr. Ney’s expulsion their first order of business when they return to Washington next month.

The last House member who faced expulsion, James Traficant Jr., a Democrat and a fellow Ohioan, was ousted from his seat in July 2002, four months after his conviction on bribery charges. But unlike Mr. Traficant, who continues to proclaim his innocence from prison, Mr. Ney is holding on to his job even after confessing to crimes.

One of Mr. Ney’s lawyers, William E. Lawler III, said in an interview that the lawmaker wanted to deal with the “odds and ends” of ending an 11-year career in Congress.

“There’s a lot of mechanical stuff that needs to be done — storage, archiving,” Mr. Lawler said.

In entering a guilty plea last week, Mr. Ney said in a statement that he would resign within a “few weeks” but wanted to remain in Congress for now “to make sure my staff members are O.K. and that any open constituent matters and obligations” are dealt with.

Mr. Lawler was critical of skeptics who question whether Mr. Ney, whose most recent disclosure forms suggest that his only major asset is a second home in Greece worth $100,000 to $250,000, is holding on in Congress mostly because he wants to cash his final paychecks.

“I don’t know why people don’t accept his explanation at face value,” the lawyer said.

The refusal to resign means that Mr. Ney can continue to draw on his $165,200-a-year salary, equivalent to $3,176 for each week he remains in the House, and his Congressional expense account, and to make use of a suite of offices on Capitol Hill, as well as four offices in his district in southeastern Ohio.

His Congressional staff — 16 people, according to the latest House staff directories — is still in place, with salaries totaling more than $70,000 a month. There appears to be a vacancy in the job of press secretary, however; reporters seeking comment from Mr. Ney are routinely referred to his chief of staff, David Popp, who has not returned several calls in recent weeks.

Mr. Ney’s official House Web site is still on line, although his Web master has fallen far behind in updating the site. There is no mention of Mr. Ney’s legal problems or his guilty plea, and the most recent online news release dates from August. Mr. Ney also retains an open invitation to the House gym.

One of his Congressional perks, free travel, has been curtailed, but not by his House colleagues. The federal judge who accepted Mr. Ney’s guilty plea, Ellen Segal Huvelle, ordered him to turn over his passport and barred him from traveling outside the United States until his sentencing hearing, now scheduled for Jan. 19. Under the plea agreement, Mr. Ney could face up to 10 years in prison, but prosecutors are recommending 27 months.

Mr. Ney, despite a criminal record, will be able to begin collecting a Congressional pension of about $30,000 a year in a decade, when he turns 62.

Mr. Lawler, Mr. Ney’s lawyer, said he was unsure if the lawmaker was working out of his Capitol Hill offices this week or if he was back in Ohio. Staff members working for other House members in the Rayburn building say they have not seen Mr. Ney for weeks.

“He’s in and out,” Mr. Lawler said. “I just don’t have a lot of information for you.”

    Bob Ney, Guilty but Still at Capitol, NYT, 19.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/washington/19ney.html?hp&ex=1161316800&en=f26a91f8d97bc919&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Report Spells Out Abuses by Former Congressman

October 18, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Former Representative Randy Cunningham pressured and intimidated staff members of the House Intelligence Committee to help steer more than $70 million in classified federal business to favored military contractors, according to a Congressional investigation made public on Tuesday.

The investigation found that Mr. Cunningham, a California Republican who is serving an eight-year prison sentence for bribery, repeatedly abused his position on the committee to authorize money for military projects, often over the objections of staff members who criticized some of the spending as wasteful.

The inquiry also found that despite numerous “red flags” about the propriety of a particular contract for work on a controversial Pentagon counterintelligence program, committee staff members for three years “continued to accept and support Mr. Cunningham’s growing requests for this project.”

Mr. Cunningham resigned from Congress in November after pleading guilty to accepting more than $2 million in bribes from military contractors. His plea was mainly related to his activities as a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

The investigation’s report lays out for the first time how Mr. Cunningham maneuvered within the classified world of the Intelligence Committee to win secret contracts for two friends, Brent R. Wilkes and Mitchell J. Wade, both contractors.

Lawyers for Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Wade declined to comment on the report. A lawyer for Mr. Wilkes was traveling outside the country.

The report is another embarrassment for Congressional Republicans, who, three weeks before Election Day, are trying to contain the damage from accusations that former Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, made sexually explicit remarks in e-mail messages to Congressional pages. The report on Mr. Cunningham was made public by Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

Ms. Harman’s action drew a rebuke from Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the committee, who called the release “disturbing and beyond the pale.”

In an interview, Ms. Harman said Tuesday that the public had a right to see the conclusions of the inquiry, which was led by Michael Stern, an outside special counsel, and completed in May. She said she had been pushing for months for the committee to produce an unclassified version of the report.

“I thought it would be out in early August,” she said, “well ahead of the election season.”

Only the five-page executive summary of the report was released. The full 59-page report remains classified.

Several crucial witnesses, including Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Wade, were not interviewed for the investigation.

Mr. Cunningham’s positions on both the Intelligence Committee and the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee gave him an advantage in obtaining classified spending provisions called earmarks.

In theory, the Intelligence Committee is supposed to authorize classified expenses before the Appropriations Committee puts them into military spending bills. But in practice, the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee has sometimes originated classified earmarks on its own, and the Intelligence Committee depends on the appropriators for its spending requests. By serving on both panels, Mr. Cunningham had influence over the entire classified budget process.

The inquiry found no evidence that staff members of the Intelligence Committee had profited or expected to profit from Mr. Cunningham’s dealings. It also concluded that committee staff members had been suspicious of Mr. Wade and “disinclined to provide him any favorable treatment.”

At the same time, committee staff members repeatedly acceded to Mr. Cunningham’s demands to steer money to Mr. Wade’s company, MZM Inc. The report describes how Mr. Cunningham worked to gain support within the Intelligence Committee for a program run by MZM at the Counterintelligence Field Activity agency of the Pentagon.

The counterintelligence program has been criticized by civil liberties groups, which say it authorizes military officials to spy on Americans under the guise of protecting domestic military bases.

But as a result of a “corrupt conspiracy” between Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Wade, the inquiry found, the Intelligence Committee’s ability to monitor the counterintelligence program effectively “appears to have been seriously impeded.”

The report cited Mr. Wilkes’s close friendship with Kyle Foggo, formerly a top administrator at the Central Intelligence Agency, who helped manage the agency’s dealings with contractors. The inquiry found that Mr. Foggo also worked with Intelligence Committee staff members, including Brant G. Bassett, a former C.I.A. officer, on classified projects relating to the management of the agency.

Mr. Bassett and Mr. Foggo provided Intelligence Committee members with “trinkets” to win favor for their efforts, including a carpet displaying the words “Global War on Terror.” The report said it was not clear whether these activities violated any regulation or law, but it recommended further inquiry.

The report suggested that Mr. Foggo, who is under investigation by federal authorities in San Diego for his dealings with Mr. Wilkes on a logistics contract, might be facing a broader inquiry than had been known. It said the investigation of Mr. Foggo also involved “several large contracts” managed by an unidentified contractor, who attended a dinner in June 2003 with Mr. Foggo and Mr. Wilkes at the Capital Grille here.

Mr. Foggo’s lawyer, Mark J. MacDougall, declined to comment.

David Johnston and David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting.

    Report Spells Out Abuses by Former Congressman, NYT, 18.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/washington/18inquire.html?hp&ex=1161230400&en=9908552e4af36779&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Congressman Pleads Guilty but Won’t Resign for Now

October 14, 2006
The New York Times
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — Representative Bob Ney, the first member of Congress to confess to crimes in dealings with the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty to corruption charges Friday but said he would not immediately resign.

Mr. Ney, Republican of Ohio, announced last month that he intended to plead guilty, admitting that in return for official acts, he had accepted tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from Mr. Abramoff that included lavish trips, meals and tickets to concerts and sporting events. He faces a prison term of more than two years.

But what had not been expected at Friday’s court hearing was Mr. Ney’s disclosure that he intended to remain in Congress for now. The announcement appeared to surprise and infuriate House Republican leaders, who are trying to tamp down other scandals that are threatening to damage the party in next month’s Congressional elections.

After learning that Mr. Ney would not step down immediately and would continue to draw his $165,200-a-year salary, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and other Republican leaders said they would move to expel him as soon as Congress returns next month for a postelection session.

“Bob Ney must be punished for the criminal actions he has acknowledged,” they said in a statement. “He betrayed his oath of office and violated the trust of those he represented in the House. There is no place for him in this Congress.”

The White House joined in calling for Mr. Ney to resign immediately. “What Congressman Ney did is not a reflection of the Republican Party,” said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman. “It’s a reflection of Congressman Ney, and he ought to step down.”

Mark H. Tuohey, a lawyer for Mr. Ney, said during the hearing, at the Federal District Court in Washington, that the congressman would resign “in the next few weeks” but wanted to remain for now “to make sure his staff is taken care of” and to deal with constituent issues.

Congressional rules do not require the immediate departure of a member convicted of a crime. So unless his House colleagues act to expel him, Mr. Ney, who announced in August that he would not seek re-election, could choose to serve until his term ends in early January.

Mr. Ney, 52, appeared contrite but calm in his court appearance. Asked by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle for his plea to charges of criminal conspiracy and making false statements, he replied, “I plead guilty, Your Honor.”

He said in a statement issued after the hearing that “I accept responsibility for my actions and am prepared to face the consequences of what I have done.”

In announcing last month that he had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors, Mr. Ney said he was an alcoholic and was seeking treatment at an outpatient medical center. Asked by Judge Huvelle on Friday whether he was currently under any medical treatment, he replied, “Right now, alcohol, last 30 days.”

The congressman is to be sentenced on Jan. 19. Under the plea agreement he could face 10 years’ imprisonment, but prosecutors have said they will ask Judge Huvelle to limit the sentence to 27 months, and she is expected to agree. His lawyers said Friday that they would ask that he be placed in a prison with an alcoholism treatment program.

Mr. Abramoff, a former Republican fund-raiser who pleaded guilty in January to charges of conspiring to corrupt public officials, including Mr. Ney, is to begin a prison sentence of nearly six years next month.

In two weeks, David H. Safavian, a former Bush administration official, is to go before a federal judge here to receive a prison sentence for his conviction on charges of lying about his relationship to Mr. Abramoff, including the circumstances of a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland that was arranged by Mr. Abramoff for Mr. Ney, Mr. Safavian and others.

    Congressman Pleads Guilty but Won’t Resign for Now, NYT, 14.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/us/politics/14ney.html?hp&ex=1160884800&en=b2eb073dbd4bc60f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush defends House leader faulted over sex scandal

Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:40 PM ET
Reuters
By Caren Bohan

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, striving to unite Republicans battered by the Capitol Hill cybersex scandal, on Thursday defended the House of Representatives leader accused of negligence in his handling of the case.

Less than four weeks before the November 7 elections in which Republicans are at risk of losing control of Congress, Bush campaigned with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who has faced calls to step down after the disclosure of lurid e-mails sent by a former Republican lawmaker to teenage congressional assistants.

Hastert's critics -- including Democrats and some Republicans -- contend he did not do enough to protect the teens who were sent the explicit messages by former Rep. Mark Foley.

Hastert has said the matter could have been handled better but that he did not do anything wrong and has rejected calls he step down as speaker.

Some Republican congressional candidates have canceled appearances with Hastert, but Bush, sharing the stage with the speaker for the first time since the Foley scandal broke last month, praised him as an effective leader for the party.

"You know he's not one of these Washington politicians who spews a lot of hot air. He just gets the job done," Bush said after Hastert introduced him at a fund-raiser for congressional candidates in the speaker's home state of Illinois.

"This country is better off with Denny Hastert and it will be better off when he's the speaker the next legislative session," Bush said.

Democrats must pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats to reclaim control of Congress. Several polls show Democrats with a big edge over Republicans, with voters upset over the Iraq war and displeased with Bush's leadership.

The Foley scandal has added to the woes of congressional Republicans already battling the fallout from the influence-peddling scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

'NO ACCOUNTABILITY CAUCUS'

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, in a fund-raising letter, derided Bush's side-by-side appearance with Hastert as "a meeting of the 'no accountability' caucus of the Republican party."

Kirk Fordham, a potential key witness in the Foley matter, testified behind closed doors on Thursday before a House ethics committee panel in Washington probing the scandal.

A former Foley chief of staff, Fordham has told news media he informed Hastert's staff about the Florida congressman's troublesome behavior toward teenage boys three years ago.

Hastert chief of staff Scott Palmer has denied it. The speaker has voiced support for his staff, but has said if there people who participated in a cover-up they should lose their jobs.

As Fordham emerged from a 4-1/2-hour meeting with the ethics panel, his lawyer, Timothy Heaphy, told reporters Fordham had been consistent in his accounts of events but would not disclose the questions posed to him.

A few House Republicans have said they first learned of what has been described as an overly friendly e-mail by Foley to a former page late last year or early this year.

Hastert said the first he learned of overtly lurid e-mails was when Foley resigned abruptly last month after the messages were disclosed by ABC News.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Thomas Ferraro in Washington)

    Bush defends House leader faulted over sex scandal, R, 12.10.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-10-13T004003Z_01_N12216647_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Hastert Meets With Critic Over Scandal

October 10, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:21 p.m. ET
The New York Times

PLANO, Ill. (AP) -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert met Tuesday with an evangelist who hoped to persuade the Illinois Republican to step down because of the congressional page sex scandal.

Hastert had no comment after the meeting at his home with Christian evangelist K.A. Paul, founder of the Global Peace Initiative.

Paul told The Associated Press he met alone with Hastert for about 30 minutes and prayed with him.

''I am humbled with his humility and simplicity,'' Paul said of Hastert.

Hastert has resisted calls for his resignation over his handling of the situation involving former Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, who stepped down after he was confronted with sexually explicit electronic messages he sent to teenage male pages. Foley is under investigation by federal and Florida authorities.

Paul said the scandal is distracting the country from other issues.

''We don't want the Foley scandal when we have 100 more important things to do,'' said Paul, whose Global Peace Initiative is a nonprofit group that focuses on causes aimed at peace and humanitarian aid.

The page sex scandal threatens Republicans' congressional control just a month before the elections.

Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who has been criticized by Democrats who say he didn't do enough to protect a page from Foley, says he told Hastert months ago about his concerns about Foley.

Hastert has insisted he was not aware of the charges until more recently but has accepted responsibility for the matter.

    Hastert Meets With Critic Over Scandal, NYT, 10.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Hastert-Evangelist.html

Hastert Vows to Fire Anyone Who Hid Page Info

October 10, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:36 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Tuesday he'll dismiss anyone on his staff found to have covered up concerns about ex-Rep. Mark Foley's approaches to former pages.

Hastert said he huddled with his staff members last week and he believes they acted appropriately in handling information on Foley's conduct. But he also issued them a stern warning: ''If they did cover something up, then they should not continue to have their jobs.''

The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation and the House ethics committee is investigating any potential violations of standards of conduct.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Kolbe said Tuesday he passed along a complaint about inappropriate e-mails from Foley to Foley's office and the clerk of the House but took no further action when learning of the incident.

A former page sponsored by Kolbe contacted the Arizona Republican's office in 2000 or 2001, well before House leaders say they first learned of inappropriate messages sent by Foley.

''Some time after leaving the Page program, an individual I had appointed as a Page contacted my office to say he had received e-mails from Rep. Foley that made him uncomfortable,'' Kolbe said in a statement. ''I was not shown the content of the messages and was not told they were sexually explicit. It was my recommendation that this complaint be passed along to Rep. Foley's office and the clerk who supervised the Page program. This was done promptly.''

Asked about Kolbe's statement, Hastert told reporters in Aurora, Ill.: ''I don't know anything more about it. If there's something that was of a nature that should have been reported or brought forward, then he should have done that.''

Hastert said he thought his staff handled the situation fairly well, but ''in 20/20 hindsight, probably you could do everything a little bit better.''

''But if there is a problem, if there was a cover up, then we should find that out through the investigation process. They'll be under oath and we'll find out. If they did cover something up, then they should not continue to have their jobs. But I didn't think anybody at any time in my office did anything wrong.''

Hastert confirmed reports from last week that he initially had suggested having former FBI Director Louis Freeh head up a Capitol Hill inquiry on the page program, but that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi objected.

In Oklahoma City, a former congressional page who may have received suggestive electronic messages from Foley was meeting with federal officials Tuesday.

Attorney Stephen Jones and ex-page Jordan Edmund entered the U.S. attorneys office in midmorning.

Edmund's connection to Foley became public after ABC News inadvertently published the computer screen name of an ex-congressional page who allegedly received online instant messages from the ex-congressman.

That session was among a host of developments in the unfolding scandal surrounding the 52-year-old Foley's relationship with teenagers, called pages, appointed to run errands for lawmakers while Congress is in session.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are responding to the ethics committee's request that they survey aides and former House pages to find out if any of them had knowledge of Foley's inappropriate conduct toward male pages.

These developments continued to cloud Republicans' prospects for retaining their congressional majority.

A CBS News-New York Times poll released Monday found that four in five said GOP leaders were more concerned with politics than with the well-being of the congressional pages. Nearly half of those polled, 46 percent, said Hastert should step down over his handling of the Foley matter, while 26 percent said Hastert should remain in his post.

The network quickly removed the screen name, but not before an Oklahoma-based blogger used the information to identify the former page.

Foley has acknowledged through his attorney that he is gay but has denied having any sexual contact with minors.

Edmund, a Californian, has been living in Oklahoma City and working as a deputy campaign manager for the gubernatorial campaign of Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., who is challenging incumbent Democrat Brad Henry. Edmund was a U.S. House page in 2001 and 2002.

Jones said last week that Edmund was willing to talk to the FBI and the ethics panel. He also said Edmund ''was a minor when the alleged events described in the media occurred.''

Jones said there was ''no physical involvement between'' Edmund and Foley. The attorney also said the two were never together privately.

Where the meeting will take place wasn't disclosed.

------

Associated Press Writer Larry Margasak contributed to this story.

    Hastert Vows to Fire Anyone Who Hid Page Info, NYT, 10.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Pages.html?hp&ex=1160539200&en=3477f78293939ee1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Battling Power of Incumbency, and Feeling Left to Fight Alone

October 7, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK LEIBOVICH

BRIGHTON, Mich. — Implausible pursuits can be humbling. Jim Marcinkowski, a Democrat, discovers this every day in his bid to dislodge Representative Mike Rogers, a three-term Republican, from the United States Congress.

“Hi, Jim Marcinkowski,” he says to an elderly man in a recent visit to a senior center.

“What?” The man is having trouble hearing over the accordion.

“I’m Jim, running for Congress.”

“Oh.”

The candidate pivots, approaches an elderly woman.

“Hi, Jim Marcinkowski.”

“Who?”

“Jim Marcinkowski.”

“Sounds Polish.”

“It is Polish.” He has a little Polish flag on his lapel.

“I’m German,” says the woman, Lieselotta Olsen. She thinks she has heard of him, or maybe not. She knows of his opponent, Mr. Rogers, who clearly holds a big advantage in name recognition.

And money, organization, experience, knowledge of the district, and everything else that make incumbency such a near-invincible force in Congressional elections. It is easy to overlook this in an environment that many predict will be hostile to sitting members of Congress, especially Republicans. But 98 percent of incumbents have been re-elected in House contests since 1998, and even when Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 in a seismic realignment, 91 percent of incumbents still won.

Mr. Marcinkowski, 51, personifies the thankless underdog. He is a probable loser (some say surefire) who is unknown to most voters in this district northwest of Detroit and irrelevant to the national party officials who recruited him — and, in his telling, then abandoned him — as they focused on 50 or so “battleground” contests. The news media ignore him, too. When told Mr. Marcinkowski was a candidate, Chuck Todd, editor of Hotline, the online political tip-sheet, asked whether he was “that guy who played quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons in the 1980’s.” (No, that was Steve Bartkowski.)

Jim Marcinkowski is the deputy city attorney for Royal Oak, Mich. He has three teenage children whom he used to see after work, and a Hobie Cat sailboat he used to float around on, on weekends.

Mr. Marcinkowski, a crisply groomed former C.I.A. operations officer, could represent a tougher-than-usual test for Mr. Rogers, who was re-elected by a margin of 37 percentage points in 2002 and 24 percentage points in 2004. A former Republican, Mr. Marcinkowski has a tough-guy résumé — Navy, C.I.A., teamster — and the silvery-haired presence of a Famous Guy you would swear you had seen before, maybe on television.

He drew national attention in 2003 and 2005 when he testified before Congress about his friend and former C.I.A. classmate Valerie Wilson. The story of Ms. Wilson, the agent whose identity was leaked by Bush administration officials, sealed Mr. Marcinkowski’s divorce from the Republicans. He had been active in the party from the time he organized the Michigan State University campus for Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign in 1980 but had gradually become disenchanted, particularly during the George W. Bush years.

His story — former C.I.A. officer, disaffected Republican — had great appeal to Democratic bigwigs seeking Congressional candidates. He talked to Representatives Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader; Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip; and Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. All urged him to run, especially Mr. Emanuel, who called several times, and even shipped him a thank-you cheesecake after he had agreed to run.

Mr. Marcinkowski says everyone promised their full support.

“That and a buck-seventy will get you a nice cup of coffee at Starbucks,” he said, adding that if he could do it again, he would have sought assurances that the campaign committee would devote ample “resources” — also known as money — to his race.

He says many of the Democrats who enticed him to run abandoned him after his fund-raising lagged and they deemed other races to be more winnable. “Sometimes I feel like the marine who they sent charging up a hill,” he said. “Then the marine looks back over his shoulder and wonders, ‘Hey, where’d everyone go?’ ”

This is a recurring lament among challengers. “You hear a lot of long-shot candidates around this time who will feel used by their committees,” said Nathan Gonzales, political editor for Rothenberg Political Report.

Mr. Marcinkowski said he spent virtually all his campaign time on fund-raising earlier this year. He devoted every weekend, lunch hour and weeknight to calling lists of past Democratic donors. He has used up six weeks of vacation time, burned through two cellphones and made about 15,000 calls, nearly all to raise money.

Mr. Emanuel’s deputies from his committee phoned him relentlessly, he said, asking “how many calls I made, how many people I contacted, whether I’d hit up all my relatives, neighbors, friends from high school.”

He raised more than $130,000 in the first quarter of 2006. Not bad, except that Mr. Rogers had about $1 million in the bank from past campaigns. Mr. Marcinkowski hired a small staff, recruited volunteers and bought local television, cable and radio advertisements. In June, Congressional Quarterly even moved Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District to the Republican Favored category from Safe Republican.

But eventually, Mr. Marcinkowski said, the calls reaped less and less money. His donors focused on higher-profile races. The calls from the Congressional committee’s officials pretty much stopped. “I fell off way their radar,” he said, adding that he “really misses those phone calls.”

The sudden silence left him “scarred,” he said, and added that no one at the committee even sent him flowers to say goodbye. He suggested that his story could be called “The Spy Left Out in the Cold.”

When did he last hear from Rahm Emanuel?

“Rahm who?”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Emanuel and the Congressional committee declined to comment.

For all his disappointment, Mr. Marcinkowski said he has no regrets about running and keeps thinking of the strangers who have encouraged him. He carries in his wallet a laminated copy of a $10 donation from a 92-year-old man. He said he loved meeting voters, “getting out in front of people.” That can include polka dancing with elderly strangers before noon, as he did on that recent day at the Brighton Senior Center.

Mr. Marcinkowski calls himself a sleeper on the national map, saying he operates beyond the purview of the party apparatus and the narrow definitions of what constitutes “in play.” He believes the dynamics in Michigan — the depth of voter agitation, concern about job losses and opposition to the Iraq war — have been underestimated outside the state.

“I don’t think the people who read the political tea leaves are reading the real tea leaves,” Mr. Marcinkowski said. He added that he has a prediction for how much he will win by on Election Day, but does not want to jinx anything by sharing it.

    Battling Power of Incumbency, and Feeling Left to Fight Alone, NYT, 7.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/us/politics/07longshot.html?hp&ex=1160280000&en=4867a1774371058c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

In House Races, More G.O.P. Seats Are Seen at Risk

October 7, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — At least five more Republican Congressional seats are now in serious contention, analysts said Friday, an unwelcome development for Republicans as they begin to confront a political environment further darkened for them by the Congressional page scandal.

The fury over sexually charged messages sent to male teenage pages by Representative Mark Foley of Florida is undercutting Republican support among elderly voters, suburbanites and women, analysts from both parties said.

More immediately — and more alarmingly for Republican strategists who have looked to the party’s powerful voter turnout operation to save the party this year — there are signs that the furor is sapping the enthusiasm of a group essential to Republican victories in 2002 and 2004: religious conservatives.

“The social conservatives are frustrated with what’s going on,” said Saulius Anuzis, the chairman of the Republican Party in Michigan, where, he said, one-third of his volunteers are social conservatives. “We have heard disappointment and disenchantment. The level of commitment isn’t as fierce as it ought to be.”

The political uproar is playing out in races across the country and comes with Republicans already struggling against the political weight of more bad news from Iraq. The page scandal has left leaders and candidates in both parties to come up with new strategies a month from Election Day.

Democrats placed advertisements linking embattled Republican incumbents to Mr. Foley, including spots in Ohio and Indiana that began broadcasting Friday. Democratic House and Senate candidates pressed Republican incumbents to say whether they thought Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who along with other senior members of the Republican leadership has come under fire as failing to act on early signals that Mr. Foley was sexually harassing teenagers, should stay in power.

In New Jersey, Thomas H. Kean Jr., the Republican Senate candidate, called on Mr. Hastert to step down.

The Democratic response to President Bush’s radio address on Saturday features a Democratic House candidate, Patty Wetterling of Minnesota, attacking House Republican leaders as ignoring warnings about Mr. Foley’s behavior, according to excerpts released Friday.

“Foley sent obvious predatory signals, received loud and clear by members of Congressional leadership, who swept them under the rug to protect their political power,” says Ms. Wetterling, a Democrat whose 11-year-old son was kidnapped 17 years ago and has not been found.

Republicans and their allies, including conservative talk radio hosts, have responded by rallying around Mr. Hastert and blaming Democrats and the news media for the frenzy.

Talk radio hosts, working off a list of talking points distributed by Republican Party officials, recounted how two decades ago, House Democrats stood behind Representative Gerry E. Studds, Democrat of Massachusetts, after he engaged in sex with a male page.

In upstate New York, Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, who is trailing his Democratic challenger according to two new polls, planned to go on television to defend himself after a labor union began broadcasting a 30-second radio advertisement questioning whether he had done all he could after hearing a complaint that Mr. Foley was harassing teenagers.

“Nobody’s angrier and more disappointed than me that I didn’t catch his lies,” Mr. Reynolds said in advertisements scheduled to begin over the weekend. “I trusted that others had investigated. Looking back, more should have been done, and for that I am sorry.”

George Rasley, an aide to Representative Deborah Pryce, Republican of Ohio, who was linked to Mr. Foley in a Democratic advertisement that began running Friday, said the Foley investigation further soured an already tough environment for Republicans in Ohio, a state hammered by corruption investigations this year.

“This is one more thing that makes people wonder about politicians and politics,” Mr. Rasley said. “It reinforces this notion of Washington being a place that bears no resemblance to real America.”

The page scandal is part of a run of difficult tidings for Republicans, including a stream of bad news out of Iraq, disclosure of an intelligence report that found that the invasion might have worsened the threat of terrorism and Mr. Bush’s continued unpopularity.

In the White House, aides have watched with frustration as campaign appearances by Mr. Bush, in which he hammers Democrats on national security, receive little coverage, subsumed by the Foley case.

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said he believed that Republicans turned a corner when Mr. Hastert accepted responsibility for the mishandling of the page scandal after days of being pressed to take action by restive Republicans.

“I’m looking at every single bit of public and private data,” Mr. Mehlman said. “So far, I have seen a minimal effect of this particular situation, which is not to say that I don’t take it seriously.”

Democrats need to capture 15 House seats to take control of Congress; until the last week or two, about 40 Republican seats had been judged in play, of which 20 had been considered highly competitive. But analysts said at least five more Republican seats, and as many as eight, that had once been considered relative long shots for Democrats had now swung firmly into play.

At least two of those seats are directly related to the Foley scandal. One is held by Mr. Reynolds, who as chairman of the House Republican campaign committee had entered this election cycle as a prohibitive favorite for re-election. Republicans in Florida do not plan to spend any money to defend the seat once held by Mr. Foley, effectively conceding it to the Democratic challenger, Tim Mahoney, who, not taking any chances, is running advertisements in which he pledges to return “moral values” to Congress.

In other races, the Foley case has created an unfavorable backdrop for Republicans. In Pennsylvania this week, Representative Don Sherwood, a suddenly endangered Republican, bought time on television to offer an apology in response to allegations that he had abused his mistress. Analysts for both parties said the sweep of outrage over Congressional misbehavior had weakened Mr. Sherwood and forced him to deal directly with the issue.

Beyond that, analysts said the page scandal had raised new concerns about ethics in Congress, an unwanted focus for Republicans in races where Democrats have sought to make an issue of what they have called a Republican culture of corruption.

Those include re-election races by Representatives Richard W. Pombo and John T. Doolittle, both of California, who have been touched by the fallout from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, as well as the contests to fill two seats vacated by Republicans who have quit the race, Tom DeLay of Texas and Bob Ney of Ohio.

“I would think the Ney seat is more of a problem because of another round of ethics problems,” said Stu Rothenberg, an independent analyst who studies Congressional races.

Amy Walter, an analyst who follows Congressional races for The Cook Political Report, said the Foley inquiry was having an indirect effect on races in which corruption might be an issue. “When the spotlight is where the spotlight sits right now,” Ms. Walter said, “on scandal and dysfunction in Congress, then people like Pombo and Doolittle suffer.”

Mr. Pombo has also been the target of advertisements by the Sierra Club and the League of Women Voters criticizing his record on environmental issues.

Other races that have become increasingly competitive are the one to replace Representative Katherine Harris, a Florida Republican running for the Senate, and the challenge to Representative E. Clay Shaw Jr., also a Florida Republican. Party officials said polls showed the two races were tight.

Officials in both parties said it was not the Foley scandal alone as much as the accumulated weight of problems for Republicans these past two weeks that was giving them concern.

“We’re working to redirect the debate back to national security and lower taxes,” said Brian Jones, the communications director for the Republican National Committee. “But this week that’s proved to be a difficult task.”

Republican pollsters said their first concern was that the page scandal could discourage Republican voters from turning out.

“We’re not seeing it affecting voter behavior; we are seeing it affect voter intensity,” said Glenn Bolger, a Republican pollster. “It’s more of a deflation effect among Republicans than it is a motivator for Democrats. Does that change in the next 34 days? That’s part of our job.”

Meanwhile, Democrats were pushing hard to make sure the Republicans’ troubles stayed in the public consciousness. On Saturday, Democrats plan to run an advertisement against Mike Whalen, a Republican running for an open House seat in Iowa, picturing him alongside Mr. Hastert.

Democratic advertisements are linking Mr. Foley to both Ms. Pryce of Ohio and Representative Mike Sodrel of Indiana. Ms. Pryce once described Mr. Foley as a friend, one advertisement says, while Mr. Sodrel is criticized as taking a campaign contribution “from the House leadership, who knew about it but did nothing to stop sexual predator Congressman Foley.”

A fund-raiser for Mr. Sodrel headlined by Mr. Hastert was postponed this week. Mr. Sodrel’s campaign manager, Cam Savage, said that was only because of a scheduling conflict.

Mr. Savage described the Foley scandal as an issue in Mr. Sodrel’s district, but not an overwhelming one. “It’s not the No. 1 priority on people’s minds,” he said, “but it does have some resonance to it.”

Reporting was contributed by Dave Staba from Buffalo and Sarah Wheaton and Jeff Zeleny from Washington.

    In House Races, More G.O.P. Seats Are Seen at Risk, NYT, 7.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/us/politics/07elect.html?hp&ex=1160280000&en=ccf6d10d0ba10174&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The Foley Scandal, in Perspective (7 Letters)

October 6, 2006
The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Real Scandals, and Fake Ones” (editorial, Oct. 5):

You write, “When it comes to sexual scandal, American voters tend to be more rational than American politicians.” Really?

I’ve been closely following the Foley imbroglio, all the while wondering why.

It is certainly a matter for concern in and of itself and, as you note, in its potential to engender a spike in intolerance, however irrational, for gay politicians. But while the Bush administration and its Congressional enablers are butchering habeas corpus and squandering American lives and dollars and prestige on an insane, futile war, I’m mesmerized by the spectacle of one congressman caught sending lewd instant messages to House pages.

I can’t say I feel myself worthy right now of assuming the mantle of superior rationality.

Ralph Porter
Portland, Ore., Oct. 5, 2006

To the Editor:

Any politically motivated “witch hunt” for gays in government is deeply disturbing and should be discouraged. It smacks of the McCarthy era and witch hunts for Communists.

Former Representative Mark Foley’s implication that his gayness can be attributed to alcohol and on being molested as a teenager by a priest is reprehensible. We must remember that pedophiles are not necessarily gay, nor are all alcoholics gay. They can be straight, too.

I’m not condoning priests molesting children by any means, but this does not necessarily make those molested turn gay.

Also, it is important to remember that being gay and being in the government should be no different from being straight in the government.

Unfortunately, gays in the government, with few exceptions, know that remaining in the closet is the only way to protect their jobs. This does a disservice to citizens who are gay and proud, as it sets back the gay rights movement based on falsehoods.

Claude M. Gruener
Austin, Tex., Oct. 5, 2006

To the Editor:

Re “A Tear in Our Fabric” (column, Oct. 5):

When David Brooks contrasts people’s reactions to the Foley case and the play “The Vagina Monologues,” in which an older woman helps a teenage girl have a sexual awakening, he misses a key point, and that is power.

Mark Foley, a congressman, had a certain amount of power, and many of the pages were responding to that power. Most were afraid to offend him or to break off communication because Mr. Foley might become an important ally in a future career.

In my mind, this is more a story of abuse of power and covering up that abuse of power by the Republican Party.

Diane L. Young
Rochester, Mich., Oct. 5, 2006

To the Editor:

Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues” is no more symptomatic of sexual depravity in modern American culture than “Macbeth” was of murder in Elizabethan England.

Does David Brooks mean to suggest that it is not the job of the theater to provoke us, to be equivocal, to reflect our best and worst selves, then leave it to us to choose good behavior when we exit the lobby?

If so, then Mr. Brooks is asking for the ostensible rectitude of propaganda.

David D. Turner
Cleveland, Oct. 5, 2006

To the Editor:

In exploring why reactions to Mark Foley’s behavior and Eve Ensler’s play “The Vagina Monologues” are so different, David Brooks doesn’t mention a simple point: One is real; the other is make-believe.

Do we expect the same reactions to “The Sopranos” and real-life criminality, or to “Where the Wild Things Are” and real childhood horrors?

Ed Federman
Acton, Mass., Oct. 5, 2006

To the Editor:

Mark Foley may have been abused as a teenager. If so, that is a terrible thing. But as an advocate for abused children, I know that the implications the public may draw from this can be unfair to other victims of child abuse.

Most of them grow up to be wonderful, trustworthy adults. With appropriate support from caring adults, these young people are fully capable of living with honor in their private lives and with distinction in their careers.

Michael Piraino
Chief Executive Officer
National Court Appointed
Special Advocate Association
Seattle, Oct. 4, 2006

To the Editor:

“A Complex and Hidden Life Behind Ex-Representative’s Public Persona” (news article, Oct. 5) is a treatise on the nature of the closet, where pretense becomes a way of life.

The risk is that deception becomes normalized, artifice takes the place of reality, and the ability to discern legitimacy is compromised.

Mark Foley is a particularly extreme example, but the closet is a dangerous place — for everyone.

Russell Granger
Brooklyn, Oct. 5, 2006

    The Foley Scandal, in Perspective (7 Letters), NYT, 6.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/opinion/l06foley.html

Panel Vows Hard Look at House Page Scandal

October 6, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 — Leaders of the House ethics committee on Thursday promised a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding former Representative Mark Foley’s electronic messages to Congressional pages and approved nearly four dozen subpoenas for an inquiry they said would take “weeks, not months.”

“The American people, and especially the parents of all current and former pages, are entitled to know how this situation was handled, and we are determined to answer their questions,” said Representative Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, who is chairman of the panel.

Mr. Hastings said that the committee, which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, would question lawmakers, House officers and staff members and “go wherever the evidence leads us.”

The committee, which had been paralyzed by partisan conflict until recently, no longer has jurisdiction over Mr. Foley, who resigned from Congress last Friday.

The panel can, however, investigate whether lawmakers failed to take adequate steps to protect pages and whether they and staff members properly pursued the initial report of Mr. Foley’s e-mail messages to a Louisiana page whose parents were alarmed by their content.

“First of all, we have to establish the facts,” said Representative Judy Biggert, Republican of Illinois, who will conduct the inquiry with Mr. Hastings and two Democrats, Howard L. Berman of California and Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio. “And the facts will lead us to who — if there is someone — who perhaps did a cover-up.”

The ethics committee action came just before Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, whose handling of the matter has been severely criticized, made an appearance in his north-central Illinois district, where he said he accepted responsibility for the way accusations involving Mr. Foley were investigated while restating that he would not resign.

Mr. Hastert had been prepared to announce that he was naming a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh, to lead a study into the security of the Congressional page program but dropped the plan because Democrats balked when told about it.

Mr. Hastert and his allies were hoping his acceptance of responsibility could begin to turn the tide in a controversy that has become a threat to Republican control of the House.

Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, circulated a letter of support that compared Mr. Hastert’s position to that of the defenders of the Alamo.

“Today, our speaker, Dennis Hastert, is suddenly surrounded by a besieging army, but of a different sort,” said Mr. Barton, who urged his colleagues to stand with the speaker. “It is not a military army, but a political and ideological army of the left, demanding his unconditional surrender.”

Other Republicans raised new concerns about Mr. Hastert, particularly after Kirk Fordham, a senior Congressional aide who once worked for Mr. Foley, said Wednesday that he had warned Scott Palmer, Mr. Hastert’s chief of staff, that Mr. Foley was acting inappropriately with pages well before the first e-mail surfaced. Mr. Palmer denied that.

“I’m very concerned with the news reports from last night that indicate leadership in the House of Representatives, including Speaker Hastert, may have had advance knowledge of this wrongdoing,” said Representative Jeb Bradley, Republican of New Hampshire. “If these allegations prove true, Speaker Hastert should resign.”

In a sign that a Justice Department inquiry is moving ahead, Mr. Fordham and his lawyer, Tim Heaphy, appeared briefly before reporters on Thursday. Mr. Fordham said nothing while Mr. Heaphy said Mr. Fordham had answered questions from the F.B.I.

“He can’t comment further,” Mr. Heaphy said, because of the inquiry.

The F.B.I. was also checking reports that one or more of the pages Mr. Foley had communicated with had, as a joke, pretended to respond in kind to Mr. Foley’s suggestive instant messages, said government officials who were briefed on the case.

Aides to the minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, said the speaker called her earlier Thursday to advise her of his idea to bring in Mr. Freeh. The aides said Ms. Pelosi objected, asserting that the issue was not the future of the page program but whether Republicans reacted properly to Mr. Foley’s contacts with a former page.

Ms. Pelosi herself said Mr. Hastert, in his remarks on Thursday, again said that the initial complaint had been handled by the House page board when only its Republican chairman and the person who was then clerk of the House had been involved rather than the full board, including the Democratic member.

“They still don’t get it,” Ms. Pelosi said.

Mr. Hastert also said Thursday that the head of the board, Representative John Shimkus, Republican of Illinois, had confronted Mr. Foley over the Louisiana e-mail and “asked him if there were any other messages.”

“He said no,” Mr. Hastert said.

On Monday, Mr. Hastert said he did not know whether Mr. Shimkus had pressed Mr. Foley on messages to others. Mr. Shimkus, in an interview on Wednesday with The Chicago Tribune, said he did not ask Mr. Foley about other messages.

The ethics committee would not disclose the intended recipients of the subpoenas. Mr. Hastings said he hoped those sought would cooperate voluntarily “because we believe that most of these individuals share our desire to get quick and truthful answers to the questions that are being asked by so many Americans.”

The ethics panel had been the center of a partisan fight after Mr. Hastert proposed changes in 2005 that Democrats said were intended to gut the panel in retaliation for a series of rebukes to Tom DeLay, who was then the majority leader. But Mr. Berman, who was named senior Democrat on the panel this year when his predecessor was forced to step aside, said he and Mr. Hastings worked well together.

“We have ideological and philosophical differences,” Mr. Berman said, “but on this committee and for purposes of this investigation, we are going to put those partisan considerations totally aside.”

Some groups called on the ethics committee to bring in outside counsel to handle the inquiry as it has done in some cases involving Congressional leaders. But Mr. Berman and other panel members expressed confidence that they could conduct a credible investigation.

“My reputation is too important to put it aside for purposes of some friendship,” said Ms. Tubb Jones, a former judge and prosecutor.

    Panel Vows Hard Look at House Page Scandal, NYT, 6.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/washington/06cong.html

Hastert, a Political Survivor, Vows to Overcome Scandal

October 6, 2006
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 — J. Dennis Hastert, who was installed as House speaker eight years ago through backroom maneuvering in a moment of crisis for his party, has no distinct power base in Congress, not much of a national reputation and, in an age of television politics, little polish in front of the camera.

But Mr. Hastert has survived and survived to become the longest-serving Republican speaker. And on Thursday, standing outside his district office in Batavia, Ill., he made it clear that he did not intend to become a casualty of the Mark Foley scandal, saying he expected to win re-election to his seat and run for speaker again when the new Congress convenes in January.

Mr. Hastert made his statement soon after the leaders of the House ethics committee promised a vigorous investigation into the handling of the Foley case, approved dozens of subpoenas and said they expected to finish their work in weeks. [Page A21.]

Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, resigned from the House last Friday after being confronted by ABC News with sexually explicit messages he had sent to teenage pages.

With both parties still trying to adapt to the fallout from the case with less than five weeks until Election Day, Mr. Hastert moved to squelch speculation that he would step down in response to suggestions that he and his staff had failed to heed warning signs about Mr. Foley.

Without acknowledging any shortcomings by himself or his aides, Mr. Hastert said he took responsibility for the matter. But he seemed to concede that leaders in times of crisis could sometimes fall victim to perceptions as much as to any wrongdoing or bad judgments on their part.

“Any time that a person has to, as a leader, be on the hot seat and he is a detriment to the party, you know, there ought to be a change,” Mr. Hastert said, answering a question at the news conference about whether he had become a drag on Republican election prospects. “I became speaker in a situation like that.”

Mr. Hastert got his job in 1998 after the party’s first choice to replace Newt Gingrich, Robert Livingston of Louisiana, pulled out at the last minute amid revelations about an extramarital affair. Since then, Mr. Hastert has endured a number of crises, in part by staying more in the background while higher-profile colleagues, particularly his one-time sponsor, Tom DeLay, plunged into the partisan fray.

Mr. DeLay is now gone, under indictment in Texas in a campaign finance case and under investigation in the Jack Abramoff lobbying case. And now Mr. Hastert has been thrust front and center, forcing him to confront the biggest threat to his hold on the speaker’s post, and to do so at a time when his party was already nervous about losing control of the House and perhaps the Senate.

Mr. Hastert, who had a busy October of campaign travel penciled into his calendar, is suddenly seen as a liability for the first time since being elected speaker. Republican candidates across the nation were canceling, postponing or reconsidering appearances with him, fund-raisers said, wary of campaigning with Mr. Hastert, even though pollsters say he carries no more than a 40 percent name recognition.

For nearly a week, Republicans said they saw the need for Mr. Hastert publicly to concede that mistakes had been made on his watch. While he stopped short of issuing a direct apology Thursday, saying he still was not aware of the extent of Mr. Foley’s inappropriate behavior toward pages, Mr. Hastert did declare, “The buck stops here.”

Hours later, President Bush called Mr. Hastert to offer his support, thanking him for “taking responsibility and for saying the House leadership is accountable,” said a White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino.

Earlier in the day, officials said Mr. Bush would not go further than the measured comments of support he delivered on Tuesday, but they later said they saw Mr. Hastert’s appearance as an important step toward cooling the furor.

The speaker also won support from former President George Bush on Thursday. In an interview with Larry King of CNN, Mr. Bush said: “I’m very, very fond and think very highly of Hastert.”

When Mr. King asked, “Don’t you think he should quit?” Mr. Bush responded, “Oh no. No, no, no.”

The signs of support were part of a carefully woven effort to bring worried Republicans back on board as the party fights to hold control of the House and the Senate. To do so, Republicans sought to stir suspicions among conservatives that revelations about Mr. Foley were delivered as part of a media conspiracy to influence the election.

The strategy largely played out under-the-radar, with Mr. Hastert conducting interviews from his home in Plano, Ill., speaking to conservative talk-radio hosts on Thursday, including William J. Bennett, Mike Gallagher and Laura Ingraham. Earlier this week, he told his version of events to Rush Limbaugh.

Since leaving Washington on Tuesday, Mr. Hastert has remained in his home in the Fox River Valley nearly 60 miles west of downtown Chicago, surrounded by his wife, Jean, and close friends. He took calls from several Republican members of Congress, aides said, and held a conference call with his House leadership team before his afternoon news conference.

Mr. Hastert, a former schoolteacher and wrestling coach, is more at home in Illinois than in Washington, traveling back to the state almost every weekend with Scott Palmer, his chief of staff, and Mike Stokke, his deputy chief of staff. When Congress is in session, the two aides and Mr. Hastert share a townhouse near the Capitol, living a bachelorlike existence. The speaker once boasted that neither he nor his roommates had cooked a meal since 1986, preferring to dine out.

It is Mr. Palmer and Mr. Stokke who are now at the center of a House inquiry into when the speaker’s office became aware of Mr. Foley’s conduct. Mr. Stokke offered his resignation this week, an aide said, but Mr. Hastert declined to accept it.

In Washington, the resignation of Mr. Foley has opened the door to the biggest crisis of Mr. Hastert’s tenure as speaker, a position he neither planned for nor was particularly eager to take over back in 1998. Even after he assumed the speaker’s chair, he was seen widely viewed inside the Republican leadership circle as a figurehead to Mr. DeLay.

He was neither the leader of a revolution, like his predecessor, Mr. Gingrich, nor was he a brash dealmaker like Mr. DeLay. His power base, associates say, simply turns on the good will he has earned among the members of Congress. And the Congressional page scandal has been his first solo test since the departure of Mr. DeLay in June at holding together a worried Republican caucus.

“The essence of Denny Hastert’s leadership is that you lead by letting other people take credit for things,” said Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. “That’s a strength of his. He’s not a limelight seeker.”

Mr. Hastert’s penchant for avoiding the limelight also illustrated a weakness, Republicans said, as he refused initially to accept responsibility for the uproar surrounding Mr. Foley’s case. He spoke to reporters on Monday, but did not take questions in front of television cameras, a decision that proved to be a mistake, aides said. His remarks on Thursday were televised live.

“It shows he’s a specialist at the game of inside politics, not the outside game of public relations,” said John J. Pitney, who studies Congress and teaches government at Claremont McKenna College in California. “He’s very good at dealing with members one on one, but focusing on a public message is not his strength.”

But in his own district, where Mr. Hastert faces a little-known Democratic challenger who is half his age, he responded to the scandal on several fronts, including placing recorded telephone calls to the homes of constituents across the 14th Congressional District.

The calls were quickly ordered up by Mr. Hastert’s campaign, and recorded by a local announcer, to respond to a telephone recording placed by a liberal group this week that accused the speaker of protecting pedophiles in Congress.

Mr. Hastert has largely escaped controversy during two decades in Congress, particularly the kind that has befallen many House leaders before him.

In recent years, though, his steady accumulation of wealth through land deals has been scrutinized, particularly after he sold a parcel of land near a federally financed highway project he supported. His net worth, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis this summer, has risen to more than $6 million from $290,000 during his time in Washington.

His aides have dismissed suggestions that Mr. Hastert has used his position to leverage financial gain, saying that he, like others in his fast-developing district, invested during a real estate upswing. At 64, he is looking toward retirement, which he flirted with after the last election.

The president, however, wanted Mr. Hastert to stay on and push his agenda through Congress.

“I hope you’re going to run again,” Mr. Bush said at the close of 2004, said Andrew H. Card Jr., who at the time was the White House chief of staff. “We need you.”

Jim Rutenberg and Kate Zernike contributed reporting.

    Hastert, a Political Survivor, Vows to Overcome Scandal, NYT, 6.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/washington/06hastert.html?hp&ex=1160107200&en=4b59eab96e48a5f5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Editorial

Real Scandals, and Fake Ones

October 5, 2006
The New York Times

When it comes to sexual scandal, American voters tend to be more rational than American politicians. The House Republicans raced to impeach President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky episode. But the people, shocked as they were, showed no desire to punish him by upending the national government. Conservative politicians frequently try to score political points by railing against homosexuality, but voters from very conservative areas often support politicians who are living out their private — and often not particularly secret — lives as gay men and women. Lawmakers from both parties have announced they were gay over the last generation, and they were almost always re-elected.

That tolerance obviously does not extend to Representative Mark Foley’s e-mail pursuit of under-age Congressional pages, an unforgivable — and very possibly illegal — abuse of public trust. But there’s reason to worry that the scandal could tempt Republican politicians and their defenders to try to turn it into an anti-gay witch hunt in the Capitol.

The Republicans’ fear of the political consequences of the scandal has already caused them to turn on each other with stunning speed. The finger-pointing at Speaker Dennis Hastert became a chorus. The Republicans, who have shown a remarkable degree of patience when it comes to investigating the Bush administration, are fairly racing to investigate their leadership.

The desire to turn Mr. Hastert into a sacrificial victim is self-serving. But the party is right to demand that the people in charge explain why they ignored glaring danger signs for so long. The Republicans, who have the ear of the voters who are likely to be the most disturbed by this scandal, should be equally aggressive in making it clear that none of this has anything to do with the sizable number of gay men who work in the Capitol, both as elected officials and members of their staffs.

Pat Buchanan helped point everyone in exactly the wrong direction when he announced on MSNBC that “there’s a proclivity” toward child abuse among homosexuals. “Is it a coincidence that 90 percent of the victims of the priests and the other folks who abuse those altar boys and others, 90 percent of the victims were boys, 90 percent of the perpetrators were men?” he asked.

What Mr. Foley did was not about his sexual orientation. Anyone who imagines that gay men pose a particular threat to American children need only contemplate the grisly crimes recently perpetrated on young girls in schoolhouse assaults by psychotic heterosexuals. The last time Congress went through a page sex scandal, two House members were censured — one gay and one straight.

When one party is humiliated this way, there’s a tendency to look for culprits in the ranks of the opposition as well. After the Lewinsky scandal broke, the public was barraged with examples of Republican members of Congress who had committed adultery. While some of the embarrassed lawmakers retreated to private life, virtually none of them were sent there by the voters.

If there is a Democratic member of Congress guilty of sins similar to Mr. Foley’s, it is likely we will hear about it soon. But convincing the public that Mr. Foley’s disgusting behavior is widespread in Washington, or trying to create the impression that the presence of gays in the highest levels of government is something to worry about, is not likely to get any Republican elected this fall. What it will do is further degrade an already depressing election year, and create cynicism among a public that really is cynical enough already.

    Real Scandals, and Fake Ones, NYT, 5.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05thu1.html