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Over the Top: Illinoisans head the national debate over money and politics

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's January 17 appearance before the news media spoke volumes about the troubles facing the Republican majority in Congress. The traditionally camera-shy Illinoisan is vastly more comfortable working behind closed doors.

Exactly two weeks earlier, Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to federal influence-peddling and fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in ongoing investigations of lawmakers and congressional staff.

The plea agreement sent shock waves through the nation's capital and prompted a scramble by both parties to embrace ethics reform. 

Democrats gleefully envisioned big gains this fall, possibly a takeover of the House and Senate. Meanwhile, nervous Republicans fretted over a future clouded by the indictment of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, the former House majority leader and Hastert's top lieutenant; the conviction of Republican U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California on bribery charges; and the resignation of Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, also linked by federal documents to the Abramoff scandal, as chairman of the House Administration Committee, which implements ethics reforms. 

Ethics reform had been, to that point, a quixotic quest for lower-ranking lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.

Hastert himself was widely seen as forcing out U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley, a Republican from Colorado, as chairman of the House Ethics Committee early in 2005 for allowing censures of DeLay the year before. On this day, though, ethics reform was a top priority for Hastert, a pragmatic Republican from the northeastern Illinois community of Plano in Kendall County — enough that he was willing to lay out his response directly to the nation and challenge his colleagues to back him.

Hastert, with his trusted ally, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, a California Republican, endorsed a ban on privately paid travel, a tighter gift ban that would allow only token items, increased reporting by lobbyists and the application of campaign disclosure laws to lightly regulated outside groups known as 527s. He also endorsed doubling to two years a ban on lobbying by former lawmakers and their staffs.

Hastert was the only member of the House Republican leadership whose position was not at least verbally challenged in the run-up to the election of DeLay's replacement on February 2. (A motion to open all leadership posts save Hastert's was defeated by the conference a day earlier, but still gathered 85 votes.)

Hastert, a former House deputy majority whip whose strength lies in understanding his colleagues' wishes and fears, accurately predicted that winning the support of fellow Republicans would not be automatic, and that he might have to bring them into line. "There is not unanimity across all these issues," Hastert said. "It's going to take some leadership and some pushing and pulling."

The moment Hastert went before the cameras was the start of what looked to become a busy year on ethics reform for the speaker and three key Democratic Illinoisans on Capitol Hill: U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, freshman U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Chicago.

Durbin, the No. 2 Democratic leader in the Senate, quickly swung his communications team into gear, coordinating that caucus to talk wherever and whenever in favor of their reform initiatives. He and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada in turn deputized Obama to be their spokesman and to reach out to good government groups for ideas and support. (Durbin and Reid got campaign donations from special interest groups that included tribal clients represented by Abramoff and others. Neither has been implicated in the federal investigation of his crimes, however.)

Durbin says he and Reid expect Obama to be "the public face" of the Democratic side of the debate for several reasons. "First, he's new; second, because in the state he had a good reputation for dealing with ethics reform; and third, because he's a very effective spokesman."

In mid-January, Obama introduced a bill requiring disclosure and votes on any new provisions added to House-Senate conference bills. Reformers say language favorable to special interests often is added secretly to appropriations and other high-priority bills and rarely is discovered before final passage.

Obama's task is to craft a more extensive proposal for Durbin and Reid by the end of March. At the outset, Obama also appeared set to add the Abramoff lobbying scandal to the Democratic election strategy of linking controversial provisions of the new energy bill, the Medicare prescription drug expansion and Medicaid cuts to the Republican majority.

And Emanuel, who, as an adviser to President Bill Clinton, felt the sting of Republican corruption accusations and an impeachment trial, wasted no time in reminding all that he and U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, had introduced their own lobbying reform bill months before, in May of last year.

Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats' election wing, upped his refrain that Republicans are coming up with too little, too late and are undeniably responsible for a "culture of corruption" in Washington.

Yet for all the talk by Illinois Democrats and Republicans about meaningful reform, only one person enjoys the power to actually force legislation: Hastert. And the early signs pointed to evolution, not revolution.

On Hastert's 64th birthday, January 2, the former wrestling coach found himself in an unfamiliar position. His mentor, DeLay, was on the verge of permanently giving up his post as majority leader, an eventuality that would propel the House Republican caucus into a number of fractious leadership debates. The next day, Abramoff, in a plea deal with federal prosecutors, forced the cozy ties between members of Congress and lobbyists onto the front pages and into the nightly news. Then rebellious conservatives called for votes on the entire Republican leadership team, save for Hastert, and an end to DeLay's use of hometown projects and plum assignments to keep lawmakers in line.

While loath to make headlines, Hastert nonetheless quickly announced that he will donate to charity some $77,000 in campaign contributions from Abramoff and the Indian tribes he represented and defrauded.

President George W. Bush and scores of lawmakers who themselves took money from Abramoff clients quickly did the same.

Hastert canceled a planned vacation to huddle with Dreier over their reform package and to consult with lawmakers to address the crisis. 

U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, a Republican from Peoria who has known Hastert since his days in Springfield, says the veteran politician acquitted himself well enough in his rapid response to the Abramoff scandal — at least among the 231-member GOP caucus. "He was accessible so people could talk to him and he could figure out what the will of the [House GOP] conference is going to be," says LaHood, who praises Hastert for knowing that he could not, despite the power of the speaker's gavel, force the changes he sought. "You can't be trotting things out and bringing things to the floor" without the backing of the rank-and-file.

Ron Michaelson, the former longtime executive director of the Illinois State Board of Elections and a visiting professor of political studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield, credits Hastert with taking a proactive approach. "He seems to me to be more interested in pushing ideas of his own, and showing that he's the leader of the Republican caucus, and acting like it." 

It appeared, too, that despite the massive special interest donations to his campaign and political action committee, Hastert was not personally tarred by the lobbying scandal. Political action committees gave more than 43 percent of the $2.6 million his personal campaign accepted in 2005, and 65 percent of the $1.6 million donated in 2005 to his Keep Our Majority PAC.

"People see him as a genuinely decent person and a person of integrity," says Michaelson. 

U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, a Republican from Urbana, says, "As far as I can tell, 

I think he's maintained a handle on it.'' Says Johnson, who also was a lawmaker in Springfield with Hastert, "He hasn't hit the panic button and [he has] maintained a pretty good balance."

LaHood says the ethics scandal has not been easy for Hastert, who many expect to retire at the end of 2008. "This is tough work, very hard work, no doubt. This has taken a toll on him."

Whether Hastert will be up to crafting ethics reform that pleases both his colleagues and the public remained an open question in February. The Republican House conference, in an upset, elected U.S. Rep. John Boehner of Ohio to take over for DeLay, and rejected the bid by DeLay's protégé, Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, to move up to the leader's job.

At the same time, opposition by some to a blanket travel ban and tighter gift ban forced Dreier to push back — until mid-February — his and Hastert's deadline to unveil formal reform legislation. Notably, Hastert did not appear at the press conference where Dreier announced the delay in the reform plan. And at a February 3 press event he lobbed a question about it to Boehner, who declined to offer specifics or make a blanket endorsement of the speaker's plan.

Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman, says the speaker, who believes that the public wants more congressional business out in the open, will stick to a methodical approach on the reform question.

But good government groups want action, not rhetoric. Fred Wertheimer, president and CEO of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics, calls the debate a "moment of truth" for every member of Congress. "What changes are you prepared to support, and what changes are you prepared to vote for?"

Obama, who is Hastert's polar opposite when it comes to being at ease before TV cameras, said at a press conference, "What's truly offensive about these scandals is that they don't just lead to morally offensive conduct by members of Congress; they lead to morally offensive legislation that hurts hard-working Americans." 

The Democratic leadership has introduced a bill called the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, backed by 39 of the Senate's 44 Demo-crats and by U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords, an Independent from Vermont. Obama is seeking to expand on the bill: "I'm going to be arguing for the best possible bill to be the Democratic caucus bill.''

Durbin, for his part, indicated the Democrats intend to include public financing of campaigns as a likely provision, along with restoring the doctrine of making time for opposing political views on public airwaves.

Finally, the package probably will include some kind of limit on 527 political committees, which can raise unlimited donations for thinly disguised campaign ads against politicians.

Public campaign financing is an idea that has never won much support outside liberal circles, but it remains the Holy Grail for Democrats seeking to undermine Republicans' historic money raising advantage.

Durbin acknowledges that the outcome of the Abramoff investigations, as it has to this point, would play a role in the success and failure of ethics reform. He calls it "likely" that more congressional figures will be snared by the ongoing Abramoff criminal probe.

"At this point, some of this is beyond our control. Abramoff, his fate, to a large extent is going to drive this debate."

 


Edward Felker is Washington, D.C., bureau chief of the Illinois-based Small Newspaper Group, whose California and Midwestern papers include The Daily Journal of KankakeeThe Dispatch of Moline and The Rock Island Argus.

llinois Issues, March 2006

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