LegiStorm has the data behind two big news stories this week regarding members of Congress and ethics.
Rep. Charles Rangel's (D-N.Y.) ethics problems have been in the news for some time, but yesterday the House Ethics Committee formally brought 13 charges against the representative.
Among the accusations are charges that Rangel "engaged in a pattern of submitting Financial Disclosure statement that were incomplete and inaccurate." Rangel filed amendments to his disclosures for 1998-2007, but not until the ethics investigation into the behavior had begun.
In addition, Rangel is charged with using public funds from the members' representational allowance to solicit donations for the Rangel Center for Public Policy at the City College of New York, as well as improperly asking for donations to the center from organizations that had business before his congressional committees.
Read LegiStorm's past posts on Rangel's ethics troubles here.
Also in the news this week was Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) when Politico revealed the senator had sponsored earmarks allocating more than $250 million since 2008 to organizations who have hired his former staffers as lobbyists.
LegiStorm has the full list of Shelby's earmarks, which total more than $1.3 billion for the past three years.
Shelby's earmarks don't violate ethics guidelines, but they hve raised eyebrows. A spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington drew parells between Shelby's behavior and the earmarks of late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) who was caught up in controversy regarding his earmarks, especially earmarks to clients of the PMA Group, a lobbying firm that has ceased operation after an FBI investigation.
