29 August 2007

Republican Congressional Scandals

Why does the Republican party have a reputation for corruption? Perhaps because they've earned it. Last cycle a key lobbyist of Congressional Republicans and two sitting members of Congress went to prison. In addition, four Republican Representatives and a Senator failed to return in large because due to scandals.

This year, you need a program to keep track of the Republican Congressional scandals:

1) Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) and 2) Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) with their sex scandals (the attempted restroom tryst and numerous successful hotel room trysts, respectively). . . .

3) Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and 4) Rep. Don Young (R-AK) are under investigation for their ties to the oil company Veco (though that's just the tip of the iceberg for Young). 5) Reps. Tom Feeney (R-FL) and 6) John Doolittle (R-CA) have found themselves the focus of a reinvigorated Abramoff investigation (though Abramoff is in prison, he's still busily cooperating). 7) Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) had his house raided. 8) The FBI is investigating Rep. Gary Miller's (R-CA) land deals.

And then there's 9) Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) whose land deal with a businessman and campaign contributor became such a scandal that she finally just sold back the plot of land. . . .

12) Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and 13) Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) in my original round-up. Both are facing ethics committee investigations for their calls last October to former U.S. attorney David Iglesias about his office's investigation of a state Democrat. . . .

And there are a couple holdovers from 2006, of course; scandal figures who've stuck around and managed to keep a relatively low profile. 10) Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is still apparently under federal investigation. And 11) Rep. Ken Calvert's (R-CA) land deals are still winning scrutiny.


There are 49 Republican Senators and 202 Republican representatives in Congress right now. There are five Republican Senators (more than 10% for the math challenged) and eight Republican Representatives (about 4%) currently under investigation in various scandals right now.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure glad the Democrats don't have anyone who is being investigated.

Andrew Oh-Willeke said...

Feel free to name any Democrat in Congress being investigated and why. Comments are open and I'm not so ideological as to deny that you could have a point if you chose to make it. Not every post is a comprehensive encyclopedia article.

Anonymous said...

I know your post is over a year old, but I found it as I was researching senators & congressmen involved in scandals. You did a good job pointing out the Republicans with problems and there are more than what you listed. Here is a list of some Democrats. They are just as prone to being unethical as the Republicans.

1) Sen. Bob Menendez D-New Jersey

2) Rep Charles Rengel D-New York

3) Rep Bob Filner D-California

4) Rep. Jane Harman D-California

5) Rep William Jefferson D-Louisiana (indicted)

6) Rep. Alan Mollohan D- West Virginia

Since we are talking about Congress, then Blago will not be mentioned...
more detail on each of them as well as additional republicans can be found at Sourcewatch.org:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Members_of_Congress_under_investigation#Sen._Bob_Menendez_.28D-New_Jersey.29

Simple point that I would like to make is that Democrats cannot in all honesty claim to be the virtuous party and look down their noses at the Republicans for their ethical lapses. Democrats are just as guilty of highly unethical conduct as the Republicans are.

Let us with equal vigor note the fact that there are many Republicans and Democrats who might find themselves on opposites sides of every argument, but who are also conducting their political careers as ethically as possible.

If you are going to convict every republican and the party as a whole for being evil because SOME republicans are guilty of unethical practices, then the Democratic party must stand equally convicted.

These are character lapses, not a sign that there is something wrong with the political positions of either party.

Anonymous said...

Both parties consist of power hungry human beings, why would anyone expect different.