Posted on 04/21/2006 8:13:30 PM PDT by rocksblues
WASHINGTON
The top Democrat on the House ethics committee, Alan Mollohan, will leave the panel _ at least temporarily _ while he defends his own financial conduct, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday.
Mollohan's decision comes in an election year when his party is accusing majority Republicans of allowing a "culture of corruption" in Congress.
Mollohan, of West Virginia, will be replaced by Rep. Howard Berman of California, a former ranking Democrat on the panel. Mollohan has denied any wrongdoing.
The only evenly divided panel in the House, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has been divided along partisan lines for the past 16 months and unable to launch any major new investigations. If Mollohan had stayed while under his own ethics cloud, the chances for the stalemate to end would have been almost impossible.
The Wall Street Journal reported two weeks ago that Mollohan steered millions of dollars to nonprofit groups in his district _ with much of the money going to organizations run by people who contribute to the lawmaker's campaigns.
Also, a conservative group filed a complaint with federal prosecutors this year questioning whether Mollohan correctly reported his assets on financial disclosure forms.
While Mollohan's troubles threaten to become a major campaign problem for Democrats, Pelosi, of California, said in a statement that Mollohan decided on his own to step down and that she accepted his decision.
"The allegations against Congressman Mollohan originate from the National Legal and Policy Center, which engages in highly partisan attacks on Democrats," Pelosi said.
"The attacks are an attempt to deflect attention from the long list of Republican criminal investigations, indictments, plea agreements and resignations which have resulted from the reported long-term and extensive criminal enterprise run out of House Republican leadership offices," she said.
Using a phrase that has become a Democratic refrain, Pelosi said, "The Republican culture of corruption has been ignored by the ethics committee for a year and a half following the decision of the Republican leadership to fire their own chairman and committee members for doing their job."
While Mollohan and committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., had 16 months of friction, Berman had a good working relationship with former ethics chairman Joel Hefley, R-Colo.
Hefley sought to have his term as chairman extended at the start of but he and two other Republicans were forced off the 10-member committee after having voted to admonish then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Since the beginning of last year, the two leaders fought over internal rules and staffing, and in a recent meeting discussed _ but were unable to agree _ on launching any new investigations.
"The attacks are an attempt to deflect attention from the long list of Republican criminal investigations, indictments, plea agreements and resignations which have resulted from the reported long-term and extensive criminal enterprise run out of House Republican leadership offices," she said.
Another outstanding example of a member of The Democratic Crime Syndicate.
Wow. This has to be the first Democrat I have seen in years that actually stepped down when confronted with corruption charges. Usually, they receive a standing Ovation (See Bill Clinton) and broad defense by their party.
I have to agree.
It doesn't seem right for the ranking minority member to be allowed to say that there is criminal activity in the leadership, without proof.
And the republicans have a rule that people leave chairmanships after a period of time. It was Hefley's time, he wasn't forced out.
Power Corrupts!
No Sh*t!!!
My impression is that the Dems effectively shut the Ethics panel down, and it does nothing. Apparently the Dems prefer resolving ethics charges via the press. Just why the Pubbies have not made more of this, escapes me. Something is rotten in Denmark.
Any time a democrat loses power it's because of the VRWC.
I grew up with these power mad freaks. Always trying to capitalize on bad news.
Yes ...Whatever happened to Murtha earmarking projects lobbied by his brother's defense lobbying firm?
The Dems like issues, not solutions.
Yep, there definitely is a culture of corruption in D.C. And Howard Dean is its Chairman.
Sick as it seems 49% of Americans actually believe that Democrats feel their pain.
"Culture of Corruption"?
These people sent back Elian Gonzales, want public funded abortion, refuse to call illegal immigrants "illegal", don't mind lying under oath, pocket money that supposed to go to New Orleans levees...and Republicans are corrupt????
And on the subject of the "culture of corruption" I remind those who haven't seen my prior posts on this subject, Pelosi grew up in such a culture. Read the histories of corruption in Baltimore City under two Mayors named D'Alesandro in the 60's. One was crooked but never charged. The other was crooked, was charged, but the charges were dropped when the key witness disappeared only to surface in a mob-related Las Vegas hotel the day after the charges were dropped.
What is Pelosi's connection to that corruption? One of those Mayors was her father, the other was her brother. Yes, Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi KNOWS corruption, up close and personal.
Meantime, the man I'm running against, Charles Taylor from NC, has done all the things that Mollohan has done, just not in numbers quite as large. Millions, but not as many millions. Taylor, like Mollohan, is on the Appropriations Committee, where the federal dollars get parceled out.
P.S. I have an early primary for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina, 2 May, less than a month away. visit my website in the tagline, and help however you can.
Congressman Billybob
Taylor was worth millions prior to being elected to office. He owns a zillion acres or something of apple orchards.
I've always found it ironic that a political party which defends the indefensible of partial birth infanticide would call others 'corrupt'. It's like sinkEmperor clinton calling Mother Teresa a sex addict.
:)
Does Chris Wakim have a chance to beat Mollohan?
no idea.
You rascal ... such a perfect grammatical sentence('whom'). Would you like to play devil's ad for the democrap party tonight, Barrister?
I requested that my post be deleted. I had a brain fart.
I cannot believe it! You, make a mistatement? NOOOOO! [Just ribbin' ya, Sir.]
I deserve it. Punish me, and then punish me some more.
The second one is what I meant. I draw those results directly from Taylor's Reports filed with House Ethics. Those Reports, like mine just filed, are made under penalties of perjury if they are "willfully" false.
I do not want to overstate his magical ability to make money while serving in Congress. The real figures are bad enough.
John / Billybob
However, Taylor is now worth in excess of $60 million ...
He has nearly doubled his net worth for every year he has been in Congress. As I said, his pattern is similar to Mollohan's.
Excel is a powerful tool. It looks more like 160 billion now:
1991 5,000,000 1992 10,000,000 1993 20,000,000 1994 40,000,000 1995 80,000,000 1996 160,000,000 1997 320,000,000 1998 640,000,000 1999 1,280,000,000 2000 2,560,000,000 2001 5,120,000,000 2002 10,240,000,000 2003 20,480,000,000 2004 40,960,000,000 2005 81,920,000,000 2006 1.6384E+11
"Washington, D.C. - This is an honor I could have done without.
But I have been asked by the Leader of my party to temporarily assume the role of Ranking Member on the Ethics Committee and I have agreed to do so.
I know that the Ethics Committee can honorably and capably investigate and arbitrate legitimate complaints because on my previous watch as Ranking Member, it did just that.
In this Committee – alone among the committees of the House of Representatives – membership is evenly divided between the parties. If every vote is cast along party lines for partisan political advantage, then the result of every vote is a tie, which stops the Committee in its tracks. Service on the Committee requires that members set aside their partisan interests and pursue the impartial analysis that is their obligation.
The Ethics Committee should be neither a Member protection agency, nor a forum for deciding partisan and ideological battles. If the Committee chooses to pursue either option, then expect my tenure to be even briefer than it is intended to be. "
1991 5,000,000 1992 10,000,000 1993 15,000,000 1994 20,000,000 1995 25,000,000 1996 30,000,000 1997 35,000,000 1998 40,000,000 1999 45,000,000 2000 50,000,000 2001 55,000,000 2002 60,000,000 2003 65,000,000 2004 70,000,000 2005 75,000,000 2006 80,000,000
Got to hand it to Pelosi. One of the members of her "leadership team" gets caught with his hands in the cookie jar, and she still wants to push the "crooked Republicans" angle. Guess they were really counting on the "culture of corruption" to vault them back into the majority.
The best part of this is that, he ends up losing his seat, the rat loses over all seats and life goes on.
This shows how bad Republicans are at PR. If this guy was a Republican, every leftie mouthpiece in the country would be commenting on him by now. I didn't even know this guy existed until now.
This story will NOT be covered on the Sunday news shows!!
I think it's called demagoguery ... which in democrat leadership conception is lying and manipulating with falsehoods and outright misdirection.
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