The Ho use Ethics Committee today closed their investigation into ties between campaign donation to seven lawmakers and earmarks to the now-shuttered PMA Group lobby shop. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, they found nobody had done anything wrong. Despite the Committees assertion that they talked to 40 companies, 25 member offices and reviewed nearly 250,000 documents, they didn’t find any ties between campaign contributions and earmarked funding. Perhaps that’s because they had about 200 million reasons not to find anything wrong.

TCS found that in each of the last three years, members of the Ethics Committee obtained roughly $200 million in earmarks either by themselves or with other lawmakers. So, any finding that revealed the seamy underbelly of thousands of dollars in campaign cash turning into millions of earmarked tax dollars was bound to create a stir for them and the rest of Congress.

The Ethics Committee seems to have taken a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach to potential earmark quid pro quo, while at the same time recognizing that lobbyists certainly think contributions result in earmarks or special treatment. The idea that lawmakers ignore previous or future campaign contributions flies in the face of political realities and, quite frankly, common sense.

A few excerpts from the report (a link to the report as well as other TCS documents regarding PMA at the bottom):

“… the [Ethics] Committee found no evidence that Members or their official staff considered campaign contributions as a factor when requesting earmarks. The [Ethics] Committee further found no evidence that Members or their official staff were directly or indirectly engaged in seeking contributions in return for earmarks. Rather, the evidence showed that earmarks were evaluated based upon criteria independent of campaign contributions, such as the number of jobs created in the Member’s district or the value to the taxpayer or the U.S. military, and without Members or their official staff linking, or being aware that companies may have intended to link, contributions with earmarks.”

And

“The [Ethics] Committee’s investigation did find that there is a widespread perception among corporations and lobbyists that campaign contributions provide enhanced access to Members or a greater chance of obtaining earmarks. However, the record indicates that Members, by and large, take great care to separate their official and campaign functions, particularly with respect to earmark requests.”

As far as we know, the FBI is still investigating this matter and that may bring a dose of reality to this issue. The Ethics report follows closely on the heels of a defense contractor being sentenced in an earmark related case earlier this week. From an AP story:

“It would have been built it for whatever it (the earmark) was, it just happened to be $8.2 million,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Preisser said. “It was a backward process, there was no cost analysis to justify the cost expenditure.”
Instead, Preisser said the taxpayers paid more because of a system that benefited a string of people who had relationships in specific congressional districts.

Perhaps the FBI will have a more realistic view of the interactions of campaign contributions and earmarks.

Here is a link to the report and additional TCS PMA-related resources:

The Committee’s letter and report from today

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