CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS: Who Can Afford to Be Honest?

THE U.S. Congress consists of 100 Senators and 435 Representatives from every state and every social background, ranging from millionaire to former coal miner. There is no reason to assume that this body includes a greater number of crooks than any other comparable sample of 535 Americans. But is that good enough? The U.S. voter takes a fairly cynical view of politicians, more or less expecting them to be up to their campaign buttons in patronage and various forms of skulduggery. But at the same time, he also expects (or wants) them to be above the more blatant forms of corruption. That is why Adam Clayton Powell's flamboyant peccadilloes, Senator Thomas Dodd's shifty manipulations of "campaign funds" and the late Senator Robert Kerr's wheeling and dealing with Bobby Baker have agitated two congressional committees and large sections of public opinion about the ethics of Capitol Hill. The central question is posed by Powell's crass claim that "everybody else is doing it too."

Is everybody else really doing it? The answer is no. While Powell may be in a class by himself, few legislators would indulge in the shenanigans practiced by any of these three. Says Republican Representative Charles Mathias Jr. of Maryland: "Most of us are honest all the time, and all of us are honest most of the time." Still, many legislators do accept practices which are separated only by a line--sometimes strong, sometimes faint--from the actions of the trio under recent scrutiny.

Perquisites & Privileges

Things used to be far worse. In 1833, no less a figure than Daniel Webster wrote the president of the Bank of the U.S. that if he wished the Senator's help against an attack on the bank, "it may be well to send the usual retainers." Big businessmen often "bought" themselves Senators by bribing the state legislatures, which at that time elected them, leading Mark Twain to remark: "I think I can say and say with pride that we have legislatures that bring higher prices than anywhere in the world."

Nothing so blatant can occur in an era of relentless publicity. Today's public doubts about congressional ethics begin in the area that is not necessarily the most important but is the most visible: perquisites and privileges, abuse of public funds and private gifts. A Congressman's or Senator's allowance for his office staff is strictly apportioned by law according to the size of his constituency--and is usually inadequate. Many Congressmen (51 at latest count) of modest means employ relatives in staff jobs, and the practice is not necessarily wrong. In Powell's case, however, his wife did no work in his office and he just pocketed her salary.

Unlike these fixed allowances, committee funds--for investigations, inspection trips, miscellaneous expenses--are highly flexible and easier to come by. Ohio's Wayne Hays, who now heads a House ethics subcommittee, not too long ago attended a NATO meeting in Paris with a delegation that included the House restaurant's headwaiter, three aides and eight members' wives. The flying legislators have to pay their wives' living expenses, though obliging hoteliers have been known to ink out the "Mrs." on a Congressman's hotel bill. No one denies that many trips are entirely legitimate, if only because they give the legislator an expanded awareness of the world.

When it comes to congressional high life, public funds play a secondary role to private offerings. Inevitably, legislators are courted men, surrounded by friendly lobbyists or lobbying friends, legitimate advocates and illegitimate pleaders. How far can a legislator go in accepting hospitality or perquisites without becoming a kept man?

The U.S. Code of 1926 declares it unlawful for any member of Congress to accept "any money or thing of value" intended to influence his action on any pending issue. He is also prohibited from accepting compensation for helping to procure "any contract" from any U.S. agency. But what is a "thing of value"--and what constitutes influence? Today most legislators follow the rule of accepting as gifts only "what can be eaten or smoked in a day." Others set some monetary limit, for example, $5. Quips Ohio Senator Stephen Young: "I arbitrarily declare every bottle of bourbon worth $4.99."

Few legislators worry about accepting expense-account meals or attending lavish parties. Paid hotel suites, rides in company planes, weekends or vacations can be a little trickier. Practically every member of Congress has some wealthy friends and acquaintances, many of them with country houses where a legislator can recuperate from the Washington wear and tear. Indiana's Charles Halleck, onetime Republican House minority leader, judiciously chooses speaking dates in localities near hunting or fishing lodges owned by his longtime friends, to which he can slip away once his political appearance is done with.

Minnesota's upright Senator Eugene McCarthy felt no embarrassment in accepting the use of a Lincoln Continental for a nominal yearly rental of $750, and Indiana's Senator Vance Hartke had a comparable deal with Chrysler. But Hartke has been a leader in the drive to force safety devices upon U.S. automakers. A legislator would have to be exceptionally malleable--or poor--to be seriously swayed by such amenities. What they can and do create is a climate of friendliness and mild obligation--but that, after all, is the essence of politics as well as public relations.

Conflict of Interest

Far more significant is the congressional problem of conflict of interest--which may not always be a conflict. This touches on an issue as old as democracy itself: Should a representative vote only in the interests of those who elected him or helped him get elected? Or is he his own man? The purist view was put most succinctly by Edmund Burke in the 18th century: "Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." The opposite view was put forcibly by Senator Kerr. Admitting that he had heavy investments back home, he declared flatly: "I represent the financial institutions of Oklahoma, I am interested in them, and that is the reason they elect me. They wouldn't want to send a man here who has no community of interest with them, because he wouldn't be worth a nickel to them."

In this area, there have been some obvious sinners. After World War II, the late Senator Theodore Bilbo was charged with having secured more than $25 million in war contracts for Mississippi businessmen who in turn gave him a Cadillac, painted and furnished his "dream houses," built him a swimming pool, and excavated an artificial lake. Representative Andrew May, as chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, steered war contracts worth $78 million to his friends, the Garrson brothers.

But there are other conflicts that are not nearly so clear-cut. Bankers have sat on the Banking and Currency Committees; a majority of the Agriculture Committees are farmers. Ohio's Senator John Bricker headed the Commerce Committee, which oversees railroad matters, while his law firm accepted $200,000 in six years from the Pennsylvania Railroad. The widely respected Senator Walter George of Georgia once offered a series of amendments to a soft-drink tax bill that proved on analysis to effectively exempt the Coca-Cola Co., whose headquarters are in Georgia.

The moral dilemmas are well illustrated by the large number of legislators (314) who are lawyers, many of whom keep an interest in their law firms back home. Says former Senator Kenneth Keating of New York: "A big firm wants you to represent them, and there's no problem of conflict in that particular matter. But they may have problems with the Government in other areas. You're afraid to lose a valuable client if you don't go along."

Keating gave up his practice entirely when he went into Congress. Others have not. A frequently used device is the "double-door" firm like the one maintained by Representative Emmanuel Celler, who was chairman of the committee investigating Powell. On the left-hand door of the office there is the legend, "Weisman, Allan, Spett & Sheinberg"; on the right-hand door, "Weisman, Celler, Allan, Spett & Sheinberg." The two firms share the same telephone number and personnel, but Celler insists that "They are completely different."

Thomas Jefferson urged that, "where the private interests of a member are concerned in a bill or question, he is to withdraw." Almost nobody follows Jefferson's rule. Argues Minnesota's Senator McCarthy: "For the most part, the gain to the individual Congressman includes the advancement of an interest that is shared by many other persons, including constituents. Consequently all of these would be unrepresented and would suffer if the individual member refrained."

Campaign Contributions

Weighing most oppressively on Congress' collective conscience is the problem of campaign expenses. Unless he is a millionaire many times over, the average member of Congress (annual salary: $30,000) simply cannot afford, on his own, the expense of getting elected or re-elected these days. Things have almost reached the point indicated by England's turn-of-the-century poet laureate, Alfred Austin, who wrote:

You want a seat! Then boldly sate your itch;

Be very radical, and very rich.

The price of campaigning has gone up and up. Pierre Salinger's losing campaign for U.S. Senator in California cost $1,600,000; Reagan's for Governor cost $5,000,000, or roughly $1.60 per vote. Few of the expenses are on official record, since the Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 stipulates that a Senator can spend only $25,000 on his campaign, a Representative $5,000. A candidate gets around this simply by setting up innumerable committees that collect and spend funds for his campaign without his "knowledge or consent." Thus Massachusetts' Senator Ted Kennedy, like many another Congress member, could and did file a report declaring that his 1962 campaign expenses were zero--though his supporters spent an estimated $2,000,000. Not that a campaign contribution necessarily means undue influence. Lobbyist Julius Klein obtained such a hold on Senator Dodd that he was able to write him bullying instructions, yet Klein also made sizable contributions to the campaigns of Senators Everett Dirksen and Jacob Javits, without any suggestion that he corrupted them. Still, contributions do often establish a strong and lingering obligation.

A legislator has his own way of raising money, most notably the testimonial dinner. It has the advantage that no single contribution is "major," even at $500 a plate. In the trade, such affairs are often known as "blackjack" dinners, since lobbyists or trade associations for whom the Congressman has done a favor are pointedly notified and often arbitrarily assigned an allotted number of tickets. In Washington, a favorite variant is the campaign cocktail party. Says one lobbyist ruefully: "I get invited to about two every month. They are so well organized that after the first drink, they pass blank checks around. It usually costs me $100 for one drink and a cold shrimp on a toothpick."

Though, legally, business firms cannot donate money, their officers, as individuals, can and do. A frequent means of concealing contributions is legal fees for nominal work paid to a Congressman's law firm back home, or a fee for delivering a routine speech. Says Bill Moyers, former White House aide to President Johnson, "I think there's probably less direct bankrolling than there used to be, but there are other ways. For example, the billboard industry might provide a Congressman with free billboards during his campaign; now, when a vote comes up on a bill to regulate that industry, it's very hard for him to vote against his benefactors." As for Bobby Baker's stealing of campaign money, Moyers comments: "I think what he did is done by other people in more sophisticated ways."

The Double Standard

None of these beams in their own eyes trouble Congressmen much when it comes to overseeing the executive branch. There they demand the utmost rectitude--and with some justice. For historically, the executive is where the big swindles have happened, with the Teapot Dome scandal of the Harding Administration as the classic case. Seduce a legislator, and you have only one vote. Seduce a commissioner of one of the federal agencies, and you get the franchise for a TV station or an airline route worth millions. Largely as a result of congressional pressure, Cabinet members now habitually dispose of their stockholdings in firms with which their departments might do business. Two years ago, Lyndon Johnson directed top government officials to list all their holdings, including those of their wives.

"For too long, Congress has followed a double standard, preaching one thing to members of the executive branch and permitting its own members to practice another," says New Jersey's Senator Clifford Case. But Congress has shown only the slightest interest in policing itself. And nobody else can do it: under the Constitution, Congress is answerable to no higher authority. Members generally argue that the actions of the executive branch must be reviewed by Congress, while Congress itself needs no watchdog, since the voters regularly review its performance at election time. So far, the only visible reform has been congressional endorsement of a "Code of Ethics"; every member received a copy trimmed in red, white and blue, suitable for framing. It contained platitudes like "expose corruption wherever discovered."

Chief reform efforts are now concentrated on the simple principle of disclosure--of stockholdings, law contracts or other interests. Among the loudest opponents of this idea is Senator Everett Dirksen, who orates that such disclosures would make a lawmaker a "second-class citizen." The case in favor is best put in a senatorial committee report prepared under Paul Douglas: "Disclosure is hardly a sanction and certainly not a penalty. Yet it would sharpen men's own judgments of right and wrong, since they would be less likely to do wrong things if they knew these acts would be challenged." New York's Senator Javits agrees: "These things ought to be known. For instance, I'll be introducing a bill soon that affects Canadian banks. Well, why shouldn't I? It is something I believe in. But my constituents ought to know that I have Canadian banks among my clients. Then they can judge my actions. But it's when they don't know these things that it is bad."

Other efforts are aimed at getting campaign expenses under control and thus delivering Senators and Congressmen from their enforced dependence on the big givers. Louisiana's Senator Russell Long has proposed that $1 of every citizen's income tax might be allocated to a presidential campaign fund, equably distributed among the candidates. Others, including Senator Mike Mansfield, have suggested shorter, federally financed campaigns; or a ban on big contributions and setting limits on what the candidates can spend.

There seems little likelihood that any of these measures will be enacted. Congress has turned down some 17 proposals to reform campaign expenditures in the past 20 years, and is notoriously reluctant to take action against malefactors in its midst. Observes ex-Senator Douglas wryly: "Men tinged with sovereignty can easily feel that the king can do no wrong." The members of Congress can certainly do wrong. But they do right far more often, and that fact would become much clearer to the U.S. if they finally relinquished enough of their sovereignty to accept at least some measure of the reform proposals.

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