LegiStorm: Transparency's Sidekick

The guilty plea this week by an aide to Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) - an aide who doesn't appear in official records at times that he was working for Davis - may raise questions for the lawmaker since ethics rules prohibit maintaining slush funds and hiring unpaid staff except under strict circumstances.

Staffer Ernest B. Moore confessed to fraud charges for using multiple aliases to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card bills and student loans. On Capitol Hill, he went by the aliases Bernard Glenn-Moore and Bernard Moore. Moore came to the Hill in 2004, when he had a one-year senior policy fellowship with Davis's office through the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (such official fellowships are permitted under ethics rules). In 2006, he transfered to Davis's office as a legislative assistant and earned a salary for a few more months. After that, no official record ties him to Davis's office, despite public evidence that Davis knew he was claiming to represent Davis as an aide.

Politico broke the story of Moore's plea and described how he maintains a working house.gov email address, has organized events on behalf of Davis and claimed in his Williams College biography, where he has taught over the past few years, to be a continuing aide to Davis.

The newspaper Politico used our site to publish a story today about how Hill staffers often have to scrape by on their wages. Politico points out that for entry-level staffers, "living on the cheap is not a measure of frugality but a means of survival."

While some staffers, especially committee aides, command more than $150,000 a year, the competition for the entry-level jobs is such that it is a buyer's market.

But Politico may have understated the case. They said that after taxes, some staffers make only $25,000. Actually, our salary figures are gross figures before the removal of taxes and other deductions. And our data shows quite a few congressional aides make $25,000 or less before taxes. As Politico says, in an expensive town like Washington, $25,000 does not go nearly so far as in most of the rest of the country.