EQUAL OPPORTUNITY SCANDAL:

Senate Democrats also 'ensnared' in scandal (Amy Fagan, 1/05/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

The Senate campaign committee said 39 of the Senate's 44 Democrats, plus Democrat-leaning independent James M. Jeffords of Vermont, have taken funds from Abramoff, directly or indirectly.

Bush to Give Up $6,000 In Abramoff Contributions (Jonathan Weisman, January 5, 2006, Washington Post)

At least 24 politicians have now pledged to relinquish $515,199 in Abramoff-tainted campaign cash, including some of the most powerful Republicans in Washington. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) will give up at least $60,000. DeLay, the former House majority leader, has pledged to donate $57,000 in Abramoff-linked contributions to charity. And acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) plans to shed the $8,500 that Abramoff and his wife donated to his political action committee.

"Because the donor of these funds has admitted to activities which are illegal and which we deplore as detrimental to our form of government, the executive director of the Rely on Your Beliefs will recommend that the board donate these funds to a charity," said Blunt spokeswoman Burson Taylor.

All but three of the 24 politicians giving up the funds are Republicans. The three Democrats -- Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.) -- have pledged to shed a total of $97,000 in contributions. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Reid has no intention of shedding the $47,000 he has received from Abramoff's lobbying team and tribal clients.

"Abramoff was a Republican operative, and this is a Republican scandal," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. "Any effort by Republicans to drag Democrats into this is doomed to failure."

The half-million dollars in pledged donations and refunds make up a fraction of the $5.3 million that Abramoff, some of his lobbying colleagues and tribal clients showered on 364 federal candidates and campaign committees from 1999 to 2004. About 64 percent of that money went to Republicans, about 35 percent went to Democrats, and 1 percent went to candidates not affiliated with either party. [...]

[S]enate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) asked Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) just before Thanksgiving to draft a package of lobbying restrictions, according to Robert L. Traynham II, a Santorum spokesman. That effort will run parallel to a push from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has drafted his own lobbying legislation. McCain's partner in an earlier campaign finance effort, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), also has a proposal.

"I will be working with colleagues this session to examine and act on any necessary changes to improve transparency and accountability for our body when it comes to lobbying," Frist said in a statement yesterday. "Some members have already made recommendations to me, or introduced legislation. I look forward to working to secure the continued integrity of the Senate."

In the House, a group of rank-and-file members approached Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) last year to press him on the dangers that Abramoff presented. Out of those meetings, Rogers, a former FBI agent who had focused on public corruption in Chicago, began work on a House lobbying measure, according to a Rogers aide.

The aide would offer no details, but he said the proposal is likely to tighten the rules on the public disclosure of lobbying contacts and to lengthen the time former lawmakers and aides must wait before they can pursue careers as lobbyists.

Rogers's efforts are seen by GOP leadership sources as more palatable than the separate packages that have been drafted by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and a group of Democrats.

'Culture of Corruption' in GOP? Democrats Hope Voters Think So (Ronald Brownstein, January 5, 2006, LA Times)

[Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist and author of "Feeding Frenzy," a book on the political implications of scandal, ] predicted that without several indictments of Republicans, it would be "very difficult" for Democrats to spread an ethical net over GOP candidates across the country.

Indeed, several recent national surveys show that when it comes to corruption, the public sees the partisan contention much like an argument between the pot and the kettle.

In a poll for NBC and the Wall Street Journal, 79% of Americans termed corruption in Washington "equally a problem among both parties." In a survey for National Public Radio, about 60% said corruption in Washington today was no greater than usual.

Democratic pollster Stanley B. Greenberg, who conducted the NPR survey with Bolger, the GOP pollster, said the results showed that Democrats were not positioned to benefit from disillusionment over Washington ethics. "Democrats will not get heard unless they are reformers," he said.

Hoping to claim that mantle, congressional Democrats are expected to champion lobbying reform this year. But Republicans will probably seek to blur that difference by advancing their own reform proposals.

Seeking to diminish the contrast on another front, Republicans are emphasizing the support Abramoff clients provided to Democrats.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the $204,253 in personal contributions by Abramoff since the 2000 election all went to Republicans. But Indian tribes he lobbied for contributed about $1.5 million to Democratic candidates and party committees over that period (as well as about $2.65 million to Republicans).

Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said that too many Democrats had received funding from Abramoff-related interests for the party "to distance themselves from this guy."

Either taking the money was wrong in itself or it wasn't. Since Democrats acknowledge it wasn't there's no hay to be made.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 5, 2006 12:00 AM