by Matthew Hay Brown
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer today defended a California Democrat facing ethics questions over her personal finances, while appearing to downplay his involvement in a fundraiser for her this week.
Rep. Laura Richardson's Sacramento house was sold in a foreclosure last month, according to news reports, and she has gone into default on properties in San Pedro and Long Beach. She still owed $9,000 in county taxes on the Sacramento house.
The Long Beach Press-Telegram reports that in 1995 Richardson stiffed a local mechanic on a $735 bill to repair her heavily damaged BMW, and then had it towed to another body shop and abandoned it. Then a member of the Long Beach City Council, she began using a city-owned car, according to the Press-Telegram, which she continued to drive for five days after joining the California State Assembly.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has called on the House Ethics Committee to investigate.
Hoyer, known in political circles as a prodigious fundraiser, is hosting a Capitol Hill event on Wednesday to help Richardson retire her campaign debt.
"I agree to do, to be on the invitations, of many of our members, including Congresswoman Richardson," the Maryland Democrat told reporters today during his weekly pen and pad session. "Congresswoman Richardson has not been, there is no wrongdoing that I know of, of which she has been alleged to have committed. ...
"As I understand, she was, she defaulted on a mortgage," Hoyer continued. "You know, there are literally millions of people in America who have defaulted on mortgages. It's a real problem for us. But I know of no wrongdoing that has been alleged beyond the fact that she defaulted on a mortgage. Or more than one. I think there may have been two."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the Ethics Committee last week to determine whether Richardson reported loans properly on her financial disclosure statements, and whether she "engaged in conduct that does not reflect creditably on the House" by loaning $77,500 to her campaign at a time when she was in default on her mortgage.
"By failing to pay her debts, filing incorrect financial disclosure forms and funneling money that should have gone to pay her mortgage and property taxes to her congressional campaign, Rep. Richardson has signaled that legal and financial obligations can be ignored in the pursuit of political power." CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said last week. "Richardson not only has shown exceedingly poor judgement, she has violated House ethics rules. She is unfit to be an elected official, at any level."
A spokesman for Richardson dismissed the CREW complaint as "mean-spirited." Spokesman William Marshall told the Los Angeles Times that the complaint "rehashes old news," and said that the House ethics counsel met with the congresswoman and said her ethics statement met House rules.
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Comments
This woman has no sense of fiscal responsibility and should not be in any position that manages, or decide where hugh amounts of taxpayer monies will be spent.
She deserves no more than flipping burgers at the local McDonalds.
Posted by: o.k. I'm scared | June 24, 2008 3:05 PM
Democrats always stand by their ethically challenged colleagues, whether it's this woman or William Jefferson or John Murtha or Bob Menendez or Harry Reid or Ted Kennedy or all the Democrats here in Corrupt Illinois.
Posted by: Green Trees | June 24, 2008 3:40 PM
Green Trees,
David Vitter. Ted Stevens. Don Young. 'nough said.
Posted by: JT | June 24, 2008 4:11 PM
Richardson has the same sense of ethics that her party's boss, tax-scofflaw Obama, has. Perhaps she can ask convicted fixer Tony Rezko to help buy her house, just as Rezko did for Obama.
In a related story, the LA Times (the Trib's sister newspaper) reports that the Obama campaign is targeting the votes of felons.
Some people look at a crimewave and see a problem. Others look at a crimewave and see more votes for Obama,
"Experts say felons are disproportionately black and, if they can be found, more likely to be Obama backers. This provides a huge potential; about 1.1 million felons in Florida were ineligible to vote in 2004, according to a 2006 book by sociologists Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen. Here too the potential for gains has risk: It could open a door for Republicans to portray Democrats as soft on crime.
The push for new and nontraditional voters is so targeted and aggressive that an NAACP official in Ohio said her organization plans to pursue individuals who are incarcerated but who have not yet been tried or sentenced and, therefore, under state law, remain eligible to vote.
The group is also tracking felons who often don't realize that, in Ohio, they are eligible to vote as soon as they leave prison.
Ex-offenders are "just everywhere," said Jocelyn Travis, who heads the Ohio NAACP's voter outreach program. "People who have a felony or criminal background are throughout our community, and they don't realize that they have the right to vote."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blackvote23-2008jun23,0,7490838.story?page=2
As John Hawkins observes: "The fact that Obama's supporters are reaching out to criminals is intriguing, but here's a more interesting question; why is that criminals, rapists, armed robbers, murderers, child molesters, etc., are more likely to vote Democratic?"
Posted by: Bruce | June 24, 2008 4:37 PM
"As John Hawkins observes: "The fact that Obama's supporters are reaching out to criminals is intriguing, but here's a more interesting question; why is that criminals, rapists, armed robbers, murderers, child molesters, etc., are more likely to vote Democratic?"
Posted by: Bruce | June 24, 2008 4:37 PM"
Because they know better than to elect people like them to govern them.
Posted by: Op109 | June 25, 2008 10:34 AM