*Congressman Norm Dicks Is In Bad Company: *Almost everyone knows that Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha has a bad reputation. (He was, after all, an unindicted ABSCAM co-conspirator.) Virginia Congressman Jim Moran is less well known, but would never be a poster boy for an ethics-in-public-service campaign. Almost no one outside Indiana has even heard of Congressman Visclosky, but we soon may know more, since he and his staff have been questioned in a corruption investigation <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/politics/04pma.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Visclosky&st=cse>.
These three congressmen share other things besides bad reputations; they are famous for adding earmarks to appropriations bills, and they are on House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. And they share one more thing; they have all received large donations <http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=194> from a lobbying company, the PMA Group <http://www.thepmagroup.com/>. Visclosky received $219,000 from the company between 2001 and 2008, Murtha $143,600, and Moran $125,250. There is a fourth congressman who does not yet have a bad reputation, but is also famous for earmarks, also sits on the subcommittee, and received the fourth largest amount of donations from the PMA Group, $91,600. That congressman is Washington state's own Norm Dicks <http://www.house.gov/dicks/>. The Seattle Times, to its credit, noted Dicks' connections to the PMA Group in a front page story <http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008906547_pma23.html>. But I am not confident that they will do the necessary follow-up stories. Dicks is, after all, a Democrat, and one with the power to help the newspaper. (Of course, I would be delighted if the Seattle Times proves me wrong on that. But I don't expect that they will, and so I urge any blogger in this area who wants to do some investigating work to take on this story.) It is possible that Dicks has not broken any laws, possible that he has not even crossed any ethical lines. But his close ties to Murtha and to Murtha's confederates give us good reason to suspect that he has not always been working for the public, as a congressman. If he is innocent, he deserves a complete and fair investigation to clear him. If he is not, the public needs to know. Cross posted at Sound Politics <http://soundpolitics.com/>. (I haven't said much about the party affiliations, but all four men are Democrats. About the same number of Republicans as Democrats have taken donations from the PMA Group, but the Democrats have taken much more money, totally. The Seattle Times did have room today for a quiz on Britney Spears, devoting nearly a page to the pop star. I may be wrong, but I don't think Britney's fans are big newspaper readers. Fun fact: Congressman Murtha was Nancy Pelosi's choice for House Majority Leader, after the 2006 election. Fortunately, the majority of House Democrats disagreed. I've mentioned this before, and I will mention it again, because it tells us much about Speaker Pelosi's ethics.) - 1:14 PM, 8 April 2009 [link] <http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/April2009_1.html#jrm7263> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
