LegiStorm: Transparency's Sidekick

The House ethics committee is looking into whether Reps. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) violated congressional rules when the Linda Sanchez took some of her sister's employees on her own payroll in late 2006, according to a story in Roll Call Wednesday.

Loretta Sanchez was going to be unable to meet payroll obligations within her budget due to embezzlement by an aide, so her sister Linda moved three of Loretta's employees onto her own payroll.

The aide, Caroline Valdez, pleaded guilty Monday to charges she stole between $5,000 and $10,000 in early 2006. The theft led to Linda Sanchez paying three of Loretta's employees in the final months of 2006. According to LegiStorm's salary records, the three employees appear to be Shane Skinner, Edward Steiner and Andrew Stephenson, all of whom appear on Linda Sanchez' payroll in November or December of 2006.

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When Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) bowed out as President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Commerce Department, he cited political differences as his reasons for the move, insisting "nothing about the vetting process played any role in this decision." Two weeks later, though, the Associated Press broke a story that might have become an integral part of the vetting process: that Gregg had secured earmarks to fund the redevelopment of a defunct Air Force base in his home state even as he and his brother, Cyrus Gregg, were investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate in the area. "I am absolutely sure that in every way I've complied with the ethics rules of the Senate both literally and in their spirit relative to any investment that I've made anywhere," Gregg told the AP.

Not mentioned in that story is something that we stumbled across in reviewing the handful of Senate personal financial disclosures released so far this year: a day before the AP's story saw print, Sen. Gregg filed an amendment to his financial disclosure pertaining to 2001, revealing further unpublicized ties linking the senator and his brother in business affairs that have received indirect assistance from federal money.

The amendment corrects Sen. Gregg's earlier filing which made no mention of his ownership stake in Photran LLC, a crystal manufacturing company co-founded by his brother, Cyrus Gregg. The amendment indicated that Sen. Gregg's stake was more than $100,000. Gregg's failure to mention Photran in the filing covering 2001 appears to have been an oversight, since he did disclose the tie the following year.

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We have long been frustrated by an inability to highlight the interesting items we stumble across in our raw records. While we have served as a valuable data source for news organizations since our founding, we have shied away from original reporting. Instead, we have been a bit too focused in on providing our existing top-quality data and developing new information sets that shed light on how Congress works.

However, today we are launching an occasional blog feature called "Storm Tips" in which we will begin to reveal a bit more about what we find in our data. Some of what we find is whimsical, some of it appears passingly strange, and some of it contains a whiff of scandal. But whatever their nature, these "Storm Tips" should serve as starting points for reporters and writers to do a bit of digging to tell a more complete story.

Our first "Storm Tips" items comes today from our staffer Stephen Snowder, who writes about Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and what his personal financial disclosures newly reveal about his controversial ties to his brother.

Most personal financial disclosures by members of Congress won't be released to the public until next month, but some interesting disclosures have already trickled out so far.

Take Norm Coleman. The Republican from Minnesota refuses to concede to challenger Al Franken in his apparent Senate re-election defeat, but his financial disclosure is a concession of sorts. Instead of filing an annual disclosure typical of any member of Congress staying in office, in April he filed a termination report along with all other departing members.

One of the latest filings released was for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who filed his termination report with the Senate this month. As the Associated Press reported today,  Stevens disclosed a debt of between $1 million and $5 million in legal fees to Williams and Connolly LLP, the firm that represented Stevens in his corruption case regarding past omissions on disclosure forms. A jury found Stevens guilty last fall before Stevens was defeated in his reelection campaign, but the case was dismissed in April after a judge found prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense.

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The amount House members are allowed to spend on office supplies, franked mail and staff salaries may be about to take a big jump.

The House of Representatives' chief administrative officer asked lawmakers to raise the total pool for member administrative expenses by $90 million, or about 15 percent, according to Roll Call.

The Members' Representational Allowances, as they are known, range from about $1.4 million to $1.7 million for each office. The expense allowance is based on various factors, including the distance of a member's district to D.C. and the cost of office space in their home district.

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House staffers might receive $33 million in benefits, according to a story in Roll Call. The possible increase comes as part of the fiscal year 2010 budget request by Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard.

At a hearing of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch Wednesday, Beard pointed out that benefits for House staffers lag behind those of executive branch officials and other legislative agencies, such as the Library of Congress. Among the benefits that stand to be created or enhanced with the new money are tuition reimbursement and child care subsidies.

"So many of our employees are young people just starting out," said Beard. "What we want to do is have a benefits package that convinces employees to stay."