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   Capitol Assets: Some legislators send millions to groups connected to
their relatives By Scott
Higham<http://www.washingtonpost.com/scott-higham/2011/03/02/ABt0vmP_page.html>,
Kimberly Kindy<http://www.washingtonpost.com/kimberly-kindy/2011/03/02/ABPCV8M_page.html>and
David S. Fallis, Published:
February 7

Some members of Congress send tax dollars to companies, colleges and
community groups where their spouses, children and parents work as salaried
employees, lobbyists or board members, according to an examination of
federal disclosure forms and local public records by The Washington Post.

A U.S. senator from South Dakota helped add millions to a Pentagon program
his wife evaluated as a contract employee. A Washington congressman boosted
the budget of an environmental group that his son ran as executive
director. A Texas congresswoman guided millions to a university where her
husband served as a vice president.

Those three members are among 16 who have taken actions that aided entities
connected to their immediate families. The findings stem from an
examination by The Post of all 535 members of the House and Senate,
comparing their financial disclosure forms with thousands of public
records. The examination uncovered a broad range of connections between the
public and private lives of the nation’s lawmakers.

(View the full results of the Post
investigation.)<http://www.washingtonpost.com/capitolassets>

Several of the cases have received previous media attention, raised by
local newspapers or campaign opponents, but the practice has continued
unabated, The Post found.

Lawmakers said in interviews that the actions they took were not intended
to directly benefit their relatives or themselves. Instead, they say, the
largesse was meant to assist corporations, educational programs and
community organizations that employ, educate and help residents in their
congressional districts.

(Chat with the reporters today at 11 a.m.
ET.)<http://live.washingtonpost.com/capitol-assets-120208.html>

In some cases, the lawmakers sought advice from congressional committees
assigned to examine possible conflicts on Capitol Hill. The panels informed
them that the practice of earmarking money to the workplaces of relatives
is permissible, as long as tax dollars are not going directly to or solely
benefitting their husbands, wives, sons or daughters. Several of the
lawmakers also certified to congressional committees that neither they nor
their immediate family members stood to benefit from the earmark in
question.

Members of Congress have more leeway than executive branch officials or
individuals in publicly held companies, who operate under stricter
conflict-of-interest rules that generally prevent them from taking actions
that might benefit businesses or institutions where their relatives work.
The legislators set and enforce their own rules, giving themselves broad
latitude to take steps that can end up directly benefiting their immediate
family.

“The executive branch has far stricter ethics standards than Congress does
— and Congress has set these standards,” said Craig Holman of Public
Citizen<http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=183>,
a nonprofit government watchdog group. “The executive branch can’t steer
contracts or work to businesses where family members work. They can’t even
own stock in industries that they oversee, unlike Congress. It’s complete
hypocrisy.”

Members engaged in behavior that included directly funding programs run by
their children, earmarking money to entities represented by their lobbyist
relatives and sending tax dollars to colleges where their family members
work or serve on boards of trustees.

Although members of Congress declared a two-year moratorium on earmarks
last year, efforts to insert targeted spending provisions into bills
continue. Lawmakers attempted to put 115 of the provisions worth $834
million<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mccaskill-led-earmark-probe-finds-834-million-in-requests/2011/12/08/gIQAl0MrlO_story.html>into
a House defense bill last year. The provisions were stripped from the
bill after they became public late last year.

Sen. Claire McCaskill
(D-Mo.)<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/M001170>,
a leading critic of earmarks, said the efforts to amend the defense bill
underscore how deeply committed Congress is to retaining its provincial
spending practices. Last week, the Senate defeated a
proposal<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minor-senate-bill-sparks-major-debate-on-ethics/2012/02/01/gIQAsW9kkQ_story.html>co-sponsored
by McCaskill and authored by Sen.
Patrick J. Toomey
(R-Pa.)<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/T000461>that
would have permanently banned earmarks. But the Senate extended the
moratorium another year.

Before the moratorium went into effect, the ability of lawmakers to earmark
tax dollars to specific programs and geographic locations was one of their
most cherished political prerogatives. Since 2007, senators have required
themselves to certify that neither they nor their “immediate” family
members have any financial interests in the programs benefiting from their
official actions. Under House rules, however, lawmakers are required to
certify only that neither they nor their spouses hold a financial stake in
their earmarks, not other members of their immediate families.

Congressional files are replete with copies of these self-certifications.
Most of them contain identical language, and few disclose that lawmakers
have relatives who are employed by the organizations about to benefit from
their benevolence. Officials at Taxpayers for Common
Sense<http://www.taxpayer.net/>,
a nonprofit group that monitors congressional spending, said they could not
recall the last time a lawmaker was disciplined for using an earmark to
benefit his or her relatives.

* ‘An experienced educator’ *

For years, Sen. Tim Johnson
(D-S.D.)<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/J000285>has
supported a Pentagon program called Starbase that teaches science,
math
and engineering skills to children in dozens of locations around the
country.

Johnson is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has
jurisdiction over the Pentagon’s budget. In 2008, Johnson, along with seven
other senators, added $4 million to the Starbase budget.

At the time, Johnson’s wife, Barbara, was paid an annual salary of $80,000
as a contract employee to evaluate the program. From 2005 to September, she
worked for the Spectrum Group, a lobbying and consulting firm in
Alexandria, that has a $1 million Pentagon contract to monitor Starbase. A
social worker and educator, Barbara Johnson was also assigned to manage its
Web site.

Spectrum President Gregory L. Sharp said he hired the senator’s wife
because of her history of working with children.

“She was looking for a job,” Sharp said. “We didn’t hire her because of her
husband. We didn’t hire her for that reason. She was an experienced
educator.”

Barbara Johnson said in an interview she took the job around the time her
husband started having health problems. He later had a brain hemorrhage in
December 2006.

Shortly after hiring the senator’s wife, Spectrum filed a lobbying
registration form with the House and Senate naming Barbara Johnson as a
lobbyist for the company. The form listed Starbase as her only client.

Sharp said the form was submitted in error.

“That was a mistake. She never lobbied the Hill,” he said. “She never
lobbied her husband.”

“I was never a lobbyist,” Barbara Johnson said.

Perry Plumart, a spokesman for the senator, said Johnson played no role in
his wife’s employment and had no contact with Pentagon Starbase officials.
Plumart said the senator didn’t think it was necessary to disclose his
wife’s employment in certifications filed with the Appropriations Committee
because the money he added to the program was technically not an earmark.

The senator’s spokesman said the money was not an earmark because it was
added to an existing program, not intended for any specific aspect of
Starbase, and the request for additional funds was not directed to
Johnson’s home state of South Dakota.

“Senator Johnson’s support of increased funding for STARBASE was not an
earmark under the definition of a congressionally directed spending item as
defined by the Senate Rules,” Plumart said in a statement.

Directors of government watchdog groups disputed that assessment.

“That’s an earmark,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for
Common Sense. “His wife supervises the thing. It’s not like he can say this
doesn’t benefit what his wife does. At some point, she has a right to earn
a living, but at some point he’s got to say, ‘The optics of this are not
very good.’ ”

An earmark expert agreed. “It’s absolutely an earmark,” said Tom Schatz,
president of Citizens Against Government Waste <http://www.cagw.org/>,
another organization in Washington that tracks congressional spending. “It
went to a program that benefits his wife. We would consider that an earmark
because it’s an increase in the budget specifically requested by members of
Congress.”

Barbara Johnson said she sought an oral opinion from the Senate Select
Committee on Ethics to ensure that her employment “wasn’t crossing any
lines.” She said she couldn’t recall when she sought the opinion or who she
met with at the ethics committee, but she said she was told that her
employment was permitted under Senate rules. “They said it didn’t pose any
conflict,” she said.

* ‘She was never my motivation’ *

Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.)<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/P000099>is
a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which has
jurisdiction over the budget of the National Nuclear Security
Administration<http://nnsa.energy.gov/>.
The Energy Department agency is tasked with securing the nation’s nuclear
weapons stockpile and preventing nuclear proliferation.

During the past six years, the congressman has directed the agency to send
millions to fund the scholarship program for at-risk high school students
headed by his daughter in Arizona. She earns $75,774 a year.

Pastor obtained a $1 million federal grant for the Achieving a College
Education program at the Maricopa Community Colleges about four years
before his daughter, Laura, was hired as its director in 2005. Since that
time, Pastor has earmarked about $4 million from the nuclear agency for the
program, records show.

Pastor said he’s proud of the earmarks and pointed out that he has sent
money to educational programs across his congressional district in Phoenix.
Maricopa’s ACE program provides financial support to high school students
who are in danger of not graduating, enabling them to take classes and
summer camps to build math and science skills and attend college. While the
money goes to the program, Pastor said his daughter’s salary is covered by
the college.

“The perception is that you helped your daughter, but if you evaluate the
kids who benefited from this, it was worth doing,” the congressman said. “I
believe thousands of kids have a better life today because of this program.”

Pastor said he was searching to find ways to support the ACE scholarship
program in 2005, when one of his colleagues on the appropriations committee
said the nuclear security administration had grants available to fund
programs at historically black colleges.

Given this, Pastor said he felt it was appropriate to earmark money from
the nuclear agency to Maricopa because the students in the program are
largely Hispanic. At the time, he said, he did not know that his daughter
was applying for a job to head the program.

“She was never my motivation,” Pastor said. “I wasn’t aware she was
applying. If I knew, I would have contacted the chancellor and said, ‘What
kind of position does this put you and me in?’ ”

Pastor filed three certifications between 2008 and 2010 stating that
“neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.” Had
he been a senator, Pastor would have been required to further certify that
no “immediate” family members had an interest.

Laura Pastor declined to be interviewed. She said in a statement: “I
applied for several positions at the Maricopa Community Colleges because I
wanted to return to work in education. I was well qualified for my
position, having administered a similar type of program in Chicago before
returning to Arizona. I was chosen through a competitive process.”

Tom Gariepy, a spokesman for Maricopa, said, “She was the best person for
the job.”

The Arizona Republic reported in 2007 that Laura Pastor was not the
highest-ranked candidate for the position but had received a salary at the
top of the pay scale. The paper also discovered that an equal-opportunity
investigator had warned college officials that “we will not be able to
totally defend the hiring decision.”

After the hiring story faded, Pastor continued to earmark money for the ACE
program, The Post found. Pastor has also secured earmarks for other
colleges, including $185,000 to Pima Community College, $1.6 million to
Arizona State University and $8.7 million to the University of Arizona.
More than a third of his college earmarks — $4.2 million to his daughter’s
program and an additional $2 million to a different program — have gone to
Maricopa.

A spokesman for the nuclear security administration said in a statement
that the use of the earmarked money was appropriate.

“Congress has authority for all earmarks and makes those decisions,” Joshua
McConaha said in the statement. “This program is not unique within NNSA or
within the federal government. . . . Recruiting and retaining the next
generation of scientists and engineers is a priority for us because the
types of people we need to execute our mission are highly sought after.”

* Collegiate connections *

The Post found a pattern of members of Congress who earmarked funds for
colleges where their relatives were employed or on boards.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
(D-Tex.)<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/J000032>has
championed millions in earmarks to the University of Houston while her
husband, Elwyn C. Lee, has helped to run the school as a senior
administrator.

The congresswoman or her staff have met with other top university officials
to discuss funding for school programs.

“We greatly appreciate the Congresswoman’s support over the years and hope
that she can help us again this year with these requests,” a school
official wrote to a staff assistant for the lawmaker in May 2011, according
to internal e-mails obtained through a public records request.

Elwyn Lee has worked at the university since 1978. Twenty years later, he
had risen to dual executive roles: vice president of student affairs for
the university and vice chancellor of student affairs for the university
system. Last March, he was named the university’s vice president for
community relations and institutional access.

Since 1994, his salary has almost doubled, to $210,491 a year.

Jackson Lee, who took office in 1995, discloses her husband’s job on her
financial disclosure form. She has helped obtain four congressional
earmarks for the school totaling about $5.3 million since 2009, according
to the university.

In 2009, she co-sponsored two earmarks to the university: $2.4 million for
a “National Wind Energy Center,” and $476,000 for a “Center for Clean Fuels
and Power Generation.” In 2010, she sponsored a $400,000 earmark to the
university for teacher training and professional development and
co-sponsored an additional $2 million for the wind center.

Last fiscal year, according to her Web site, she sought $16.5 million more
for the university that was blocked by the earmark moratorium.

The University of Houston, which has about 36,000 undergraduates, is one of
several schools Jackson Lee has supported with earmarks. She has also
directed earmarks to Texas Southern University and to University of Texas
programs in recent years, records show.

Jackson Lee’s staff did not respond to repeated requests for interviews and
comment. Her husband said he played no role in securing the earmarks.

“None of the Congressional earmarks secured by UH was directed to the areas
under my supervision,” Elwyn Lee said in a statement. “To reiterate, it is
not my responsibility, and it has never been my responsibility, to secure
Congressional earmarks. Therefore, there has been no conflict to manage.”

As a member of the House education committee, Rep. Robert E. Andrews
(D-N.J.) <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/A000210> has
secured six earmarks worth $3.3 million for a scholarship program at
Rutgers School of Law in Camden.

His wife, Camille Spinello Andrews, is an associate dean of the law school
“in charge of enrollment, scholarships, and special legal programs,”
according to the school’s Web site.

More than half the earmarks were secured prior to 2007, before the House
began to require that the spending measures be publicly disclosed. The new
rules prompted Andrews to seek an ethics opinion that year. The committee
concluded there was no conflict because his wife did not have an “ownership
interest” in the law school and the earmarks did not “affect the spouse’s
salary.”

The following year, one of Andrews’s political opponents turned the
earmarks into a campaign issue. Andrews continued to earmark money for the
law school scholarship program, filing certifications that stated “neither
I nor my spouse has any financial interest in the project.”

The congressman said his wife has no direct oversight of the scholarship
program. He added that he is proud of the earmarks, citing them as an
example of why the moratorium should be lifted.

“These earmarks put money into a scholarship program that required students
to provide free legal services to the poorest people in a very poor city —
Camden,” Andrews said.

Camille Spinello Andrews did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment.

The congressman acknowledged that earmark abuses have taken place and the
latest rule changes governing earmarks have not reformed the practice.

“When a member wants funding for a project in their district, they call or
write to an unelected official in the executive branch,” he said.
“Recently, I called [Transportation] Secretary Ray LaHood and asked for
money for a bridge in my district. I am proud that I did that, because that
bridge is needed. But the only way you know about that call is because I
just told you. I believe that all these calls and letters by members should
be made public. It’s perfectly legitimate for the public to ask questions
about earmarks, but you can’t do that if you don’t know about them.”

>From 2007 to 2009, Rep. Rob Bishop
(R-Utah)<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/B001250>requested
earmarks worth more $1.5 million for Weber State University in Ogden.
Subsequent to those requests but before $1.25 million of them were
ultimately secured, the university hired the congressman’s son Shule Bishop
as a lobbyist. He serves as director of government relations. The
congressman said the earmarks to Weber posed no conflict because none were
requested when his son worked there and his son lobbies the state
legislature, not Congress.

“There is no connection,” Rob Bishop said.

His spokeswoman, Melissa Subbotin, added that the congressman and his staff
interact with Weber’s Washington lobbyist, not Shule Bishop.

“The congressman has been working on behalf of Weber State since he was
first elected, which far predates his son’s employment there,” Subbotin
noted, adding that the congressman has given earmarks to other universities
in Utah.

Shule Bishop declined to discuss the earmarks. He referred questions to his
supervisor, who said clear lines have been drawn to keep the congressman’s
son from lobbying his father.

“I don’t know what they talk about around the dinner table when the
congressman is home on the weekends, but we haven’t put him in the position
of asking for things from his father,” said Brad Mortensen, who oversees
lobbying efforts as Weber’s vice president for university advancement.

He said the university didn’t hire Shule Bishop because of his father’s
position.

“The reason we hired Shule was because of the relationships he has in the
state Capitol,” Mortensen said. “His father was speaker of the House in the
Capitol. He has worked around the Capitol and knows the legislature well.”

Shule Bishop’s job title seems to reflect that he’s in charge of all
lobbying efforts, but Mortensen said the state and federal lobbying shops
at Weber are kept separate.

“Having the son of a congressman in a government relations role at the
state level, that does create some conflicts, so we would try to make sure
those discussions were ones where Shule wasn’t the one strategizing or
talking to even our federal contract lobbyist, let alone his father’s
office,” Mortensen said.

As a result of The Post’s inquiries, Mortensen said Weber plans to change
Shule Bishop’s job title, probably to “director of state government
relations.”

* ‘Best for his constituents’ *

Lawmakers also used their legislative prowess to earmark money to the
clients of their lobbyist relatives.

In Chicago, the Lipinski family name carries clout. William O. Lipinski was
an influential member of Congress for 22 years, serving on the House
Transportation Committee and sending millions of tax dollars back to his
congressional district. When Lipinski decided to step down from Congress in
2004, he persuaded Democratic Party leaders to back his son for his seat.

Since joining Congress in 2005, Rep. Daniel Lipinski
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/L000563>has continued
his father’s tradition of funding projects in Illinois as a member of the
same committee. Along the way, the Chicago Democrat has helped to send
federal tax dollars to a client of his father’s lobbying practice,
Capricorn Communications.

Daniel Lipinski, along with other members of the Illinois congressional
delegation, secured $2.5 million in earmarks since taking office for rail
projects that are overseen by the Chicago Transit Authority. The CTA is one
of William Lipinski’s lobbying clients and has paid the former congressman
$766,330.20 in fees since 2007, according to the transit agency. Lipinski’s
earmarks for his father’s client were first reported by the Chicago
Sun-Times in 2010.

The CTA said in a statement that William Lipinski helps the agency with
congressional contacts outside of the Illinois delegation on the House and
Senate transportation committees. Other members of the Illinois
congressional delegation have also earmarked money for CTA-related projects.

Daniel Lipinski declined to discuss the earmark. Through a spokesman, the
lawmaker said he sees nothing improper with the arrangement and didn’t
think it was necessary to obtain an opinion about the propriety of the
spending from the House Ethics Committee.

“His father does not lobby him on behalf of his clients on transportation
or any other issues,” spokesman Nathaniel Zimmer said. “In these, as in
other areas, Congressman Lipinski is focused on doing what is best for his
constituents.”

Zimmer provided a statement on Daniel Lipinski’s behalf.

“As the most senior Chicago-area member of the Transportation &
Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Lipinski has helped to secure funding for
numerous important local transportation projects that are widely supported
by both residents and other elected officials,” the statement said. “That
our transportation infrastructure is in serious need of investment is
beyond doubt, and every one of these projects fills a critical need.”

Daniel Lipinski filed the required certification with the House
Appropriations Committee in April 2009.

“I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this
project,” the congressman wrote. Under House rules, Lipinski’s
certification did not need to extend to his father.

Between 2005 and 2010, Rep. Corrine Brown
(D-Fla.)<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/B000911>helped
secure $21.9 million in earmarks to six clients of Alcalde & Fay, a
lobbying firm that employs her daughter, The Post found. During that time,
the clients paid the firm more than $1 million in fees to represent them
before Congress, records show.

Other earmarks by Brown have been previously reported. She was the sole
sponsor of $1.79 million in earmarks to a seventh client, the Community
Rehabilitation Center. At the time, her daughter, Shantrel Brown, worked as
a lead lobbyist on behalf of the center, the Florida Times-Union reported
in 2010.

The earmarks were secured to help finance “substance abuse and mental
health programs” at the center and to upgrade a Jacksonville, Fla., strip
shopping mall where the center is located, records show. The federal
lobbying reports say Shantrel Brown sought “federal funding for substance
abuse and mental health programs” from 2008 to 2010.

The congresswoman declined requests for an interview and also declined to
respond to written questions about the earmarks. Her chief of staff, Ronnie
Simmons, also would not say whether the congresswoman sought an ethics
opinion about the propriety of the earmarks.

Shantrel Brown did not return calls or respond to e-mails seeking comment.

Sen. Bill Nelson<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/N000032>,
a fellow Democrat from Florida, joined Brown as a co-sponsor of a $750,000
earmark for the rehabilitation center in 2010. When he later discovered
that Brown’s daughter was a lobbyist for the center, he decided to withdraw
his support.

“We try to do our due diligence. The center had the backing of many
community leaders,” Nelson spokesman Bryan Gulley told The Post. “But when
we learned her daughter was involved in lobbying for the center, that
raised enough concerns that we no longer supported the project.”

* *

* *

* *

Washington Post researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this article.


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