Today's sentencing of disgraced former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) is a resounding victory for those who want to see public officials held accountable for their misdeeds. His conviction and sentencing proves that he was not a victim of the "criminalization of politics" as he claimed in August when the Department of Justice (DOJ) ended its six-year investigation of him.

We may never know why DOJ's Public Integrity section backed away from its investigations of DeLay and a number of other scandal-ridden Members of Congress, but today's sentence hammers home the point that the former Majority Leader abused his office and broke the law and that he will be punished as a result.

Tom DeLay thought he was above the law. There are many tales of DeLay's arrogance and disdain for laws he didn't agree with or found inconvenient. In a widely reported incident when he was Majority Leader, DeLay visited a high-end steak house and decided to light up a cigar despite a smoking prohibition. When he was reminded that there was a 'no smoking' policy, he asked the restaurant employee who ordered the smoking ban and the employee said, "the Government." DeLay reportedly responded, "I am the Government." That kind of arrogance and his abuses of power finally got the attention of prosecutors in Texas, who pursued a case of public corruption against DeLay. They are commended for their diligence and their service.

Unfortunately, the vigor with which the Travis County District Attorney's office pursued this case and other public corruption cases stands in sharp contrast to the current U.S. Department of Justice, where public official after public official (including DeLay himself) have been given a 'get out of jail free' card from the Criminal Division's Office of Public Integrity. It is no wonder that federal officeholders are held in such low regard by the American public when elected officials can engage in criminal activity while the Justice Department seemingly stands on the sidelines, failing to bring them to justice.

To get Members of Congress to clean up their acts, there have to be serious consequences for those who violate the law. Today, former Congressman DeLay learned that lesson. It is time for the U.S. Justice Department to learn it as well.

We commend Speaker-designee John Boehner (R-OH) for including the continuation of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) in the draft of the operating rules for the House for the 112th Congress.  The OCE has faced opposition and criticism from Members from both parties because it has brought a degree of transparency and accountability to the House ethics process that had long been missing. 

The new rules contain no suggested weakening changes, which we had feared in the wake of ongoing attacks and criticisms by some Members uncomfortable with an ethics process emerging from a long hibernation.  The OCE must be permitted to do its job and must be given the necessary resources to do so.  The American public has a right to expect that Members of Congress be held to the highest ethical standards and we will continue our monitoring of the OCE’s work in the days ahead to ensure that there is continued enforcement of House ethics rules.

Today, the Campaign Legal Center, along with Democracy 21, filed an amici brief with the Eighth Circuit in Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) v. Swanson.  In the suit, the plaintiffs rely on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC to attack Minnesota’s restriction on corporate contributions to state candidates and political parties, and its state disclosure requirements for corporate independent expenditures. 

“This is yet another example of a campaign finance challenge targeting laws that have survived the recent onslaught of campaign finance deregulation from the Supreme Court, but it is one that conveniently ignores the Roberts Court’s strong affirmation of campaign finance disclosure,” said Legal Center counsel Tara Malloy.  “Ironically this suit comes in Minnesota, where strong disclosure laws led to significant controversy over contributions made by Target to a committee endorsing a controversial gubernatorial candidate this past election cycle.”

The district court in the MCCL case denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in September of this year, and amici curiae urged the Court of Appeals to affirm this decision.

Amici argued that Citizens United invalidated only restrictions on independent expenditures by corporations and unions, and therefore did not question the constitutionality of restrictions on corporate contributions.  Further, as the amici brief pointed out, Citizens United was a powerful endorsement of the constitutionality of disclosure, with eight Justices upholding the federal disclosure provisions that were at issue in the case.  For these reasons, the amici brief argued that the plaintiffs have no basis for their challenge to Minnesota’s corporate contribution restriction or its disclosure laws.

To read the brief filed by the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, click here.

Today reform groups called on Speaker-designee John Boehner (R-OH) to preserve and strengthen the strong new rules adopted by the House in 2007, including the creation of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).   The new rules were instituted in response to a series of high-profile scandals involving Members and their staffs and the letter stressed that the rules and the beleaguered OCE should not be weakened in any way. 

The organizations credit the OCE with helping to revitalize an ethics process that had become the object of public scorn after years of inaction.

The organizations include the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, CREW, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.

The full letter follows below.

December 21, 2010

House Speaker-designee John Boehner

H-204, The Capitol

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker-designee Boehner:

Our organizations are writing to strongly urge you to support, without any weakening changes, the gift, travel and other ethics rules adopted by the House in 2007 in response to the Jack Abramoff scandals.

We are pleased to see that, according to Roll Call (December 16, 2010), Representative Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said on December 16 that "he doesn't 'anticipate any change' to the Office of Congressional Ethics in the 112th Congress, as members of the House GOP transition team concluded it will not issue recommendations about the future of the fledgling office."

As you know, our organizations strongly support the OCE, a critically important ethics reform from the last Congress and believe it is essential that the OCE continue in the next Congress with its authority, powers and funding fully intact.

We also strongly urge you to oppose any efforts to weaken or backtrack on any of the existing ethics rules and standards of conduct that have been adopted to protect the integrity of the House and the interests of the American people. We further urge you to seek ways to strengthen the existing ethics rules and standards in order to ensure that members of the House are held to the high ethical standards that citizens expect from the federal officeholders who exercise great power over their daily lives.

The organizations include the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, CREW, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.

The ethics rules adopted in 2007 included new restrictions on lobbyists and lobbying organizations paying for trips, gifts, meals and entertainment for Members, and ended the practice of Members paying cut-rate amounts to use corporate planes for their travel. 

These rules also established pre-approval requirements for trips financed by persons other than lobbyists and lobbying organizations and timely disclosure of these trips after they occur. This is an area where the rules and oversight apparently need to be strengthened, in the wake of the Caribbean trip that was the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation based on the recommendation of the Office of Congressional Ethics.

Another important rule adopted in 2007 prohibited House members from participating in events held at the presidential nominating conventions to "honor Members" and financed by lobbyists or by private entities that retain or employ a lobbyist.

This rule was adopted to stop the abuses that had occurred at national conventions where lavish parties paid for by lobbyists and lobbying organizations were, in essence, parties thrown by House members and financed by influence-seekers.

In December 2007, the House Ethics Committee issued a guidance to House members that opened gaping loopholes in this rule.  In a letter sent on December 18, 2007 to the Ethics Committee, reform groups stated:

"The Committee's guidance, issued on December 11, 2007, provides a clear roadmap for Members and lobbyists on how to circumvent and ignore the new rule at the party conventions next year. The door is opened wide by the Committee for lobbyists and lobbying organizations to continue their past practices at conventions of sponsoring and paying for lavish parties to "honor" Members - abusive practices that led to the adoption of the new rule."

With the presidential nominating conventions coming in 2012, we urge you to provide the leadership necessary to overturn this unjustifiable guidance and restore the "convention parties" rule to its original meaning.

In conclusion, we urge you to take all steps necessary to preserve and, where necessary, strengthen the House ethics rules and standards of conduct that exist to protect the interests of the American people in an honest and ethical House of Representatives.

Campaign Legal Center                      League of Women Voters

Common Cause                                   Public Citizen

CREW                                                     U.S. PIRG

Democracy 21

Earlier today, a federal judge in Washington, DC, dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of private citizens challenging the Voting Rights Act in Laroque v. Holder.  The Legal Center’s Executive Director J. Gerald Hebert said of the decision: “The court today got it exactly right in granting the motions to dismiss.  That the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue was never in doubt.”

Hebert served as co-counsel to a group of intervenors in the case, including the North Carolina NAACP.  Also serving as co-counsel were Laughlin McDonald of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, and Anita Earls and Allison Riggs of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. 

“This is the first of two constitutional challenges to the Voting Rights Act, hoping to find a sympathetic audience in the United States Supreme Court,” Hebert added.  “Today’s decision was an important victory in safeguarding this historic and still very pertinent piece of legislation.”