Ethics

Only In Washington: Ethics Questions Follow Ethics Chairman

Susan Crabtree | September 22, 2011, 6:06PM

Reps. Jo Bonner (R-AL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Rep. Jo Bonner's GOP primary challenger is trying to stir up some ethics trouble that could create more headaches for Bonner, the sitting chairman of the House Ethics Committee, not too far down the road.

Dean Young, a Republican candidate for Alabama's 1st district, this week brought up a series of conflicts-of-interest questions that have followed Bonner since a botched Ethics Committee investigation of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) last fall.

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Allen West

Allen West Threatens To Quit Congressional Black Caucus Over Attacks On GOP, While Attacking Dems

Eric Kleefeld | August 31, 2011, 3:49PM

Rep. Allen West (R-FL)

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), the hard-line conservative Tea Partier who is currently the only Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus, is now saying that he might quit the group -- if they don't condemn remarks made by fellow member Rep. André Carson (D-IN) attacking Republicans.

"Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens," Carson told a CBC event in Miami. "Some of them in Congress right now with this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me -- hanging on a tree."

This has West -- who has made no small amount of racially inflammatory remarks about Democrats and African-American voters -- calling for the CBC to denounce Carson, who holds a leadership position as CBC whip.

"It is unconscionable when a fellow CBC Member, Congressman Andre Carson, comes to South Florida and claims that some in the Tea Party would love to see black Americans 'hanging on a tree,'" West wrote Wednesday in a letter to CBC chair Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), which he also released to the media. "It is appalling to hear another CBC colleague, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, say 'The Tea Party can go straight to hell.'

"As Chairman of the CBC, I believe it is incumbent on you to both condemn these types of hate-filled comments, and to disassociate the Congressional Black Caucus from these types of remarks. Otherwise, I will have to seriously reconsider my membership within the organization."

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Maxine Waters

Maxine Waters Tells Constituents: 'The Tea Party Can Go Straight To Hell' (VIDEO)

Eric Kleefeld | August 22, 2011, 12:07PM

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) had some tough words for Tea Partiers, at a constituent event in the Los Angeles area on Saturday.

The local ABC station reports that Waters, plus fellow area Democratic Reps. Karen Bass and Laura Richardson, held a town hall event in Inglewood, where over a thousand attendees asked tough questions about unemployment and the economy.

Answering the crowd, Waters promised to fight the Republicans in Washington. "I'm not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game -- you can't be intimidated, you can't be frightened," said Waters. "As far as I'm concerned -- the Tea Party can go straight to Hell."

In response, the crowd offered up a round of applause.

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Allen West

Waters: Allen West's Comments 'So Odd' -- And I'm Helping His Brother (VIDEO)

Eric Kleefeld | August 18, 2011, 6:25PM

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has been firing back at Rep. Allen West (R-FL), who named her as an example of how the Democratic Party has created what he called a "21-century plantation" over black voters, with appointed African-American leaders to act as "overseers" -- the men who committed the day-to-day atrocities of ruling over slaves in the antebellum South.

"I think it's so odd," said Waters, in one such appearance on Hardball, shaking her head. "No, I think that's odd, and it doesn't make good sense. And I don't think that it even deserves a response.

Waters then dished out a response: "Did I tell you his brother was here today?"

She explained to Matthews that West, who is originally from Atlanta, has a brother who went to the Congressional Black Caucus's jobs fair and town hall event in that city.

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Maxine Waters

Waters To Ethics Panel: Dismiss Case -- Or Else

Susan Crabtree | July 18, 2011, 6:02PM

Reps. Jo Bonner (R-AL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA)

An attorney for Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-CA) is calling on the Ethics Committee to dismiss immediately the charges against her in the wake of an unprecedented leak of secret internal committee documents providing a blow-by-blow account of the panel's alleged bungling of the case.

The scores of Ethics Committee e-mails and memos, reported by Politico Monday with links to the documents, paint a picture of a committee consumed by partisan dysfunction and accusations of professional misconduct surrounding Waters' case.

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Maxine Waters

Sinking Ship? Waters Seizes On Leaked Secret Ethics Committee Docs

Susan Crabtree | July 18, 2011, 10:56AM

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is contemplating her next move in response to a game-changing Ethics Committee leak of hundreds of documents detailing the alleged internal mishandling of her case.

Waters is expected to demand copies of the documents from the panel as early as today, a spokesman told TPM Monday morning after a report in Politico quoted internal Ethics Committee e-mails and memos that paint a picture of a committee consumed by partisan dysfunction and accusations of professional misconduct surrounding her case.

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Ethics

Pols Brace For Probes After House Ethics Panel Staffs Up

Susan Crabtree | June 28, 2011, 4:42PM

Reps. Jo Bonner (R-AL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA)

The House Ethics Committee has hired six new staffers, ending a nearly seven-month period when the panel suffered an exodus of aides and investigative functions were at a standstill, the House Ethics Committee said in a statement Tuesday.

The hirings complete the staff roster and come one month after the committee unanimously tapped Daniel Schwager, a former counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee, as its staff director.

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Ethics

'Non-Partisan' House Ethics Staffer Donated To RNC

Susan Crabtree | March 16, 2011, 5:00PM

The House and Senate Ethics Committees are supposed to be the two panels in Congress that operate, to the best of their ability, in a nonpartisan way. At least, that's what they say.

There are plenty of internal committee rules stating that all staff must be non-partisan and abide by rules barring them from engaging in political or partisan activity of any kind. But there is little proof, as TPM has discovered, that anyone is enforcing these rules.

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Ethics

Watchdogs: Ethics Committee In Turmoil Over Partisan Staff

Susan Crabtree | March 15, 2011, 6:00AM

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)

Government watchdogs are condemning a decision to allow a Republican office to become a safe haven for supposedly nonpartisan Ethics Committee staff, saying it's one of the leading reasons why the panel is so dysfunctional.

The House Ethics Committee, led by Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL), has virtually shut down amid partisan recriminations and staff sniping over last year's handling of the case against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). Last week TPM reported that at least one of the panel's attorneys who had been suspended for allegedly mishandling the case had soft-landed on the GOP side of the House Natural Resources Committee, run by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA).

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Ethics

In Limbo: Suspended Ethics Committee Attorneys Still On House Payroll

Susan Crabtree | February 25, 2011, 2:12PM

Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL)

Last year was particularly rough for House Democrats as the messy public ethics spectacles involving prominent Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel (NY) and Maxine Waters (CA) played out for all the world to see right in the waning months before a difficult and ultimately devastating election for Democrats.

Now that Republicans are in charge of the House, watchdogs are scrutinizing their every move, waiting for signs that they're weakening the ethics standards or continuing Congress's long history of slow-walking ethics cases and its seeming inability to impose tough sanctions on those who break the rules.

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Ethics

Boehner: Rangel And Waters Scandals Won't Have Major Election Impact

Brian Beutler | August 5, 2010, 6:17PM

House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)

Republicans have been trying to extract as much political gain as possible from the ethical clouds surrounding Democrats Charlie Rangel (NY) and Maxine Waters (CA). But in an unexpected statement this afternoon, House Minority Leader John Boehner acknowledged it's not making much of a difference.

"It's a sad day for the House when members are charged with violating the rules of the House," Boehner told WHAS in Louisville, KY in an interview, "This is going to play itself out, but I don't expect it's going to have a big impact on the election."

Boehner was in Kentucky to help Republican Todd Lally defeat incumbent Democrat John Yarmuth.

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Ethics

Jujitsu! Dems Will Attempt To Turn Tables On GOP Over Ethics Scandals

Brian Beutler | August 5, 2010, 8:02AM

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH)

Republicans are doing their best to drag the entire Democratic party under the ethical cloud hanging over Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA). That strategy makes many vulnerable House members wish the two would step aside or admit wrongdoing so the controversy would die. But Democrats are hoping that a bit of political jiujitsu can flip this attack on its head: they would like to show that Democrats are dealing with their ethically compromised members publicly, and officially while the GOP protects its own and keeps its sins private.

A top Democratic strategist tells TPMDC that Democrats plan to seize on two stories from the past year, suggesting that Republicans aren't free of their own ethical problems, but that they just deal with them behind closed doors.

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Health Care

Pryor: Reid Has Tried To Find The Middle-Ground Among Dems--But Has He Succeeded?

Brian Beutler | November 5, 2009, 5:38PM

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) hosted a meeting of moderate Democrats this afternoon, including Sens. Mark Begich (D-AK), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Kent Conrad (D-ND), to compare notes on health care legislation. But, as is becoming a common theme around these parts, they say there's not much to discuss until they can see the bill with a CBO score.

After the meeting adjourned, I asked Pryor whether he and fellow moderates had sympathy for the idea, articulated most frequently by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had found the correct middle ground in his caucus by including a public option in the final bill. "I know that Harry Reid has tried to find the center of the caucus. I don't know that he has, I'm not saying he hasn't. But once we actually see this bill and know what's in there, we'll talk about it as a caucus," Pryor said.

Pryor suggested that there may be some number from CBO early next week, but was careful to note that those were merely rumors. If he's right, though, we will know plenty more in the days ahead.