LegiStorm: Transparency's Sidekick

Once again, an Alaskan legislator is in hot water over allegedly receiving gifts that were not listed on his financial disclosure forms.

Court documents filed leading up to the sentencing of Bill Allen allege that Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) received as much as $200,000 over a period of 13 years, the Associated Press reported this weekend. Allen and his oil company VECO Corp. were central figures in former Alaska Sen. Ted Steven's (R) corruption trial.

The court filing says Young received as much as $15,000 a year from VECO to pay for the congressman's annual pig roast fundraiser from 1993 to 2006. It also alleges that VECO vice president Rick Smith used Allen's credit card to buy a $1,000 set of golf clubs for Young.

Former congressional aide Kevin Ring secured a hung jury in a corruption trial yesterday by claiming that showering gifts on members of Congress and their staff is the normal way of doing business in Washington. So how many precious gifts have been disclosed by congressional aides? Precious few, it turns out.

Our review of thousands of disclosures of congressional staff reveals only a handful of gifts that have been disclosed in recent years. Congressional rules require disclosure of all gifts greater than $50 and bans many kinds of gifts.

A common reason stated for receiving gifts has been for a wedding. When Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) staffer Richard Boykin got married in 2006, he received several gifts, including $500 from one of his boss's campaign contributors and $500 in china from long-time and well-known lobbyist Bernie Robinson (although Boykin did not disclose him as such). Gifts from lobbyists are banned by House rules.

In what has become an all-too-common pattern this year, another former congressional aide pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy in the long-running Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

James Hirni, a former legislative director to Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), admitted in court that he helped provide an all-expense paid trip to the 2003 World Series to two congressional aides. At the time, Hirni was a lobbyist working on Abramoff's team.

There's no reason to believe this is the end yet.

Yesterday's indictment of Kevin Ring, a former legislative director to Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) and colleague of disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, is further evidence of the need for accurate financial disclosures by members of Congress and their top aides.

The 10-count indictment alleges that Ring made false statements about receiving a $135,000 kickback himself, as well as showering Doolittle and others with illegal gifts. Prosecutors say that congressional officials were filing false financial disclosures regarding these gifts because doing so would have been admitting to receiving illegal gifts.

The indictment says that Ring provided legislative and executive branch officials with gifts in exchange for official actions. They include all-expenses-paid domestic and international trael, fundraising assistance, meals, drinks, golf, sports tickets and employment opportunities to spouses, including Doolittle's wife.

With his indictment today, the powerful and cantankerous Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is finding that it's often not the underlying deed that proves your undoing but the coverup.

Stevens would probably have been in a heap of legal trouble for taking more than $250,000 in gifts from a contractor in the form of home renovations and household goods. But it's the failure to report these gifts on his personal financial disclosures that makes it such an easy case for federal prosecutors, who just unveiled a seven-count indictment against the senior senator for making false statements.

There's no need for prosecutors to prove a quid pro quo. All they need to show is that Stevens took the gifts, knew he was taking gifts and that he knowingly failed to report it.