April 25, 2005
Ethics Rules on Travel for House Members
LINK
The following are excerpts from the House of Representatives' ethics rules on travel:

A member, officer or employee may accept necessary expenses from a private source for travel in connection with official duties - including, for example, to give a speech or engage in fact-finding - subject to the following restrictions.

¶ The source of the travel expenses may not be either a registered lobbyist or a registered foreign agent, and the source must have a direct and immediate relationship with the event or location being visited.

¶ For a domestic trip, travel expenses may be accepted for not more than four days (96 hours), and for a trip outside the continental United States, travel expenses may be accepted for not more than seven days (excluding days taken in whole or in part in traveling to or from the United States), except with the written approval of the Standards Committee.

¶ In any event, a trip may not be longer than the time reasonably necessary to accomplish the trip's officially connected purpose.

¶ Staff travel must be authorized in advance by the individual's supervising member or officer.

¶ For each trip, a travel disclosure form that lists each of the expenses paid by the private source must be filed with the clerk's office within 30 days of return.

¶ Expenses for entertainment and recreational activities while on travel of this type are acceptable, if at all, only under the gift rule provision allowing acceptance of a gift valued at less than $50, subject to the annual limitation in gift value of less than $100 from any one source.

¶ Expenses may be accepted to enable one's spouse or child - but not both, or any other individual - to accompany the member or staff person.

A member, officer or employee may also accept travel of the following types, provided that the requirements of the rules and other applicable laws are satisfied.

¶ Travel resulting from outside business, employment or other activities of the member or staff person or his or her spouse, provided that the travel was not offered or enhanced because of the individual's official position, and the benefit is one that is customarily provided to others in similar circumstances.

¶ Travel given on the basis of personal friendship, but Standards Committee approval is required for any personal friendship gift exceeding $250 in value.

¶ Travel paid for by the federal government, or by a state or local government.

¶ Travel paid for by a foreign government, provided that either the travel takes place entirely outside the United States and is disclosed pursuant to the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, or the travel complies with the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act.

¶ Travel paid for by a political organization in connection with a fund-raising or campaign event sponsored by that organization. A member, officer or employee, however, may not accept travel to a charity event.

As a general rule, travel having an official House purpose (as opposed to merely an officially connected purpose) must be paid for entirely with official House funds.

April 25, 2005
Credit Receipts for DeLay Trip Raise Concerns
By CARL HULSE and PHILIP SHENON, NY TIMES

WASHINGTON, April 24 - House Republicans said Sunday that they intended to redouble their efforts this week to resolve a partisan impasse over the ethics committee as Representative Tom DeLay faced new disclosures regarding his overseas travel that could eventually come before the committee.

"We need a functioning ethics committee," a senior Republican leadership aide said Sunday. The aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, was increasingly determined to find a resolution to the dispute keeping the panel that enforces House rules from beginning operations this session. The aide said Mr. Hastert was being driven more by institutional concerns than by the furor engulfing Mr. DeLay, the majority leader.

Mr. DeLay himself has called for the panel to review trips that have come under special scrutiny, especially ones involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Mr. Abramoff played a role in arranging a trip to Britain for Mr. DeLay, his wife and members of his staff in May 2000, a trip that included stops in London and at the St. Andrews golf course in Scotland.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that it had obtained travel receipts showing that Mr. Abramoff's personal credit card had been used to pay $6,938 for Mr. DeLay's airfare to and from Britain, suggesting a possible violation of House ethics rules, which bar lobbyists from paying for a lawmaker's travels. It had been previously disclosed that Mr. Abramoff had paid part of Mr. DeLay's hotel bill. Mr. DeLay's lawyer denied impropriety.

Democrats said the latest disclosures about Mr. DeLay's travel were another illustration of why the Republican majority should undo rules at the center of the feud that has paralyzed the ethics committee and left it unable to look into the activities of the majority leader or any other House member.

"These latest revelations," said Stacey Bernards, a spokeswoman for Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, "add to what every day is increasingly clear - that Republican leaders must return to the bipartisan rules and allow the ethics committee to organize so that all of these allegations can be dealt with appropriately and in a nonpartisan manner."

Democrats have blocked the committee from beginning work this year, asserting that changes in rules forced through by the Republican majority at the start of the session undermined the ability of the panel to do its work. Republicans on the committee offered last week to begin an inquiry into Mr. DeLay's travel immediately if Democrats would accept the rules changes. But Democrats refused, saying such a compromise would keep the underlying rules in place; under one such new rule, ethics complaints could be automatically dismissed if the evenly divided committee did not agree on how to proceed after 45 days.

Mr. DeLay was admonished by the ethics committee in three instances last year, and any new finding by the panel that Mr. DeLay acted inappropriately regarding his travel could be a significant problem for the majority leader, whose political activities are also under scrutiny in Texas.

Mr. DeLay's lawyer, Bobby R. Burchfield, said Sunday that the lawmaker still believed that the National Center for Policy Research, a conservative group, paid for his trip to Britain in accordance with House travel rules. He added that Mr. DeLay did not know whether Mr. Abramoff, who was at the time a member of the group's board of directors, used his personal credit card to pay for parts of the trip.

The center has said that it invited Mr. DeLay and his wife on the trip to Britain and paid the costs, which totaled tens of thousands of dollars.

Federal investigators say Mr. Abramoff is under scrutiny by a task force led by the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The task force is trying to determine whether the lobbyist, an old friend of several members of Congress besides Mr. DeLay, may have defrauded Indian tribes that were among his lobbying clients and whether he may have improperly provided gifts to lawmakers in exchange for their help on legislation.

Mr. Burchfield said there was no suggestion that Mr. DeLay faced any sort of scrutiny by federal prosecutors as a result of his contacts with Mr. Abramoff, who has cited his constitutional rights against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions from Congressional investigators. Mr. Burchfield also said Mr. DeLay and his legal team had not been approached by the Justice Department or the F.B.I. as part of a grand jury investigation of Mr. Abramoff.

Through his lawyers, Mr. Abramoff has denied any wrongdoing, saying that his actions as a lobbyist were legal and that he was being singled out for activities that are common on Capitol Hill.

Much of the focus on Mr. DeLay's overseas travel has involved questions about whether it fell within the guidelines of House ethics rules, which, while allowing for organizations and corporations to pay a lawmaker's expenses for travel as long as the expenses are reported, do ban members of Congress from accepting payments from lobbyists or foreign agents for those expenses.

Other trips by Mr. DeLay that have received attention are a 1997 visit to Russia that he reported was paid for by the research center but that public interest groups assert may have been financed by a business in the Bahamas and a visit to South Korea in 2001 that was paid for by a lobbying group set up by South Korean businessmen.

A trip Mr. DeLay took to Malaysia in 2001 also raised questions because he listed the Heritage Foundation as the trip's sponsor on disclosure forms. But several reports indicated that the trip might have been partly paid for by Belle Haven Consultants, a for-profit firm linked to the Malaysian government and based in Hong Kong.

When Mr. DeLay, his wife and other lawmakers took the four-day trip to South Korea, the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council picked up the $28,000 bill, travel records show. The trip has come under scrutiny because the Exchange Council was registered with the Justice Department as a "foreign agent," meaning it represents organizations outside the country. Mr. DeLay has said he was unaware of the foreign-agent designation.

Mr. Burchfield said that at the time of the trip to Britain the president of the National Center for Policy Research, Amy Moritz Ridenour, was "eight months pregnant and on physician-ordered bed rest" and that she had turned over some of the arrangements to Mr. Abramoff and his law firm, Preston Gates & Ellis. Mr. Burchfield said Mr. DeLay and his lawyers had no knowledge of exactly how the tickets had been paid for.

"Jack Abramoff was at the time of the trip to the U.K. a member of the board of the National Center, and Congressman DeLay and his staff understood that in connection with the U.K. trip, Mr. Abramoff was acting in his capacity as a member of the board," the lawyer said. "The National Center is a well-respected organization that has a strong reputation for integrity."

Mrs. Ridenour could not be reached on Sunday, but in an interview last month, she said the center's leaders had invited Mr. DeLay on the trip and suggested that if Mr. Abramoff or others had paid some of the costs, they had been reimbursed by the center.

Ex-Lawmakers Accuse House of Protecting DeLay
By Thomas Ferraro, Reuters, Friday 15 April 2005

Washington - Ten former Republican U.S. lawmakers on Friday urged a reversal of new House of Representatives ethics rules that they charged were changed to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay from further investigation.

In an open letter to Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the former lawmakers said the rule changes early this year, which make it more difficult to probe an ethics complaint, must be reversed "to restore public confidence in the people's House."

"We felt grave concern when the Republican leadership changed the ethics rules ... We saw it as an obvious action to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay," the letter said.

The letter came as Democrats stepped up their campaign against the Texas Republican, whom they have made a top target in next year's congressional elections, with a new Web site highlighting allegations about him.

The former Republican lawmakers offered no judgment about recent ethical questions facing DeLay, but wrote that there was a consensus in their districts that "previous admonishments to Mr. DeLay for casting discredit on the House were well merited."

DeLay was admonished by the House ethics committee last year on three separate matters involving what critics denounced as strong-armed political tactics.

In recent weeks, DeLay, who has denied wrongdoing, has been confronted with questions about ties to lobbyists, foreign trips funded by outside groups and use of campaign funds.

Hastert had no immediate response to the letter. A leadership aide seemed to dismiss it, noting one of the signers, former Rep. Pete McCloskey of California, opposed President Bush in last year's election.

"It is always good to get feedback from former Republican members, particularly those who endorsed (Democratic) Sen. (John) Kerry for president," the aide said.

Many fellow House Republicans have publicly rallied to DeLay's side, agreeing with him that he has become the victim of unfair partisan attacks.

Some, however, have voiced private concerns, particularly about a continuing grand-jury probe in Texas that indicted some DeLay associates last year on charges of illegal fund-raising.

President Bush on Thursday defended DeLay as "a very effective leader."

In addition to McCloskey, other signers of the letter included Mark Andrews of North Dakota, a moderate who served in the House and Senate between the 1960s and 1980s.

Others, all of whom served in the House in the same era were: John Buchanan of Alabama; M. Caldwell Butler of Virginia; Paul Findley of Illinois; Bud Hillis of Indiana; James Johnson of Colorado; Richard Mallary of Vermont; Wiley Mayne of Iowa, and G. William Whitehurst of Virginia.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee unveiled a web site on Friday to serve as a "clearinghouse for information" about allegations about the Texas Republican.

The site, headlined "Tom Delay's House of Scandal," can be found at dccc.org.

"I think the American people will find this useful," James Carville, who was a political strategist for former President Bill Clinton, said in helping the committee announce the site.

DeLay Gets Spanked by the Old-School GOP
By Mark Follman, Salon.com, Friday 15 April 2005

Another hole today in Tom DeLay's sinking ship: Ten former members of Congress, all Republicans, sent a letter on Friday to the House leadership saying they believed that recent revisions in House ethics rules were an "obvious action to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay" from investigation. They called for the changes to be reversed "to restore public confidence in the People's House."

The 10 former lawmakers who signed the letter have all been out of Congress since the late 1980's; they described themselves as former members "who served under impeccably honest leaders." That may be stretching the concept a bit, but their bottom line seems to be that, well, at least a basic appearance of integrity is important.

"We offer no judgment on Mr. DeLay's actions in the obtaining of funds and favors from lobbyists and foreign agencies, other than to note that they are the subject of continuing disclosure and discussion well outside the Beltway and in the heart of areas of strong respect for traditional Republican values of honesty and accountability," the former congressmen said. "We write not as a Revolt of the Elders but in the sincere hope that you will act to restore public confidence in the People's House."

"We felt grave concern," the letter added, "when the Republican leadership changed the ethics rules several weeks ago to require a bipartisan majority vote to even investigate a charge of ethical misconduct. We saw it as an obvious action to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay."

Right now it's looking like he could use all the protection he can get. As one of the signatories, former congressman Pete McCloskey put it, "if the Republicans circle their wagons around DeLay like they circled their wagons around Richard Nixon, it may have the same result."