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Pigs At The Trough
Abramoff, Indian-Tribe Money Reached Deep Inside U.S. Congress
By Mike Forsythe & Kristin Jensen
05/19/05 (Bloomberg) -- Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of ethics questions involving House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, joined with his partner and Indian tribal clients to give money to a third of the members of the U.S. Congress, records show.
A Bloomberg News analysis of Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service records shows that at least 171 lawmakers got $1.4 million in campaign donations from the group between 2001 and 2004, mostly from tribes with casino interests. DeLay, a Texas Republican, ranked 10th, receiving $35,000.
The contributions show the extent of the tribes' reach in Congress since they hired Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay spokesman. As details emerge from two Senate investigations and an FBI probe of Abramoff's dealings with the tribes, questions of ethics may haunt some congressional races in 2006.
``That is always an advantage for the party out of power,'' says Steve Gunderson, a Republican representative from Wisconsin until 1997. ``The politics of `it's time for a change' always comes back into American politics.''
Dissatisfaction with the legislators is at an eight-year high, a Gallup poll conducted May 2-5 found. Only 35 percent of 1,000 adults said they approved of the way Congress does its job.
``It's not a pretty picture,'' says Frank Newport, editor-in- chief at the Princeton, New Jersey-based Gallup Organization. It's hard to gauge how concern over ethics affects approval ratings, Newport says, adding ``it's a logical suspect'' in the decline.
Many lawmakers -- Republicans and Democrats -- got contributions from the tribes for reasons that had nothing to do with Abramoff's activities and say they never met the lobbyist.
$86.7 Million
Abramoff and Scanlon were attracted to the tribes as potential clients because of their substantial casino revenue -- $18.5 billion in 2004 for all U.S. tribes -- according to e-mails released at Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings last fall. The lobbyists collected $86.7 million in fees from tribal clients from 2001 to 2004 and sometimes steered campaign contributions from the tribes to politicians, according to committee documents and federal disclosures.
Republican Senator Conrad Burns of Montana led all 535 members of Congress in donations from Abramoff and the tribes, netting at least $136,500 from 2001 to 2004. As head of a panel overseeing the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget, Burns, 70, had a say in the flow of funding to tribes running casinos.
Four other senators were among the top 10 recipients of money from the tribes and lobbyists: North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan, with $54,000; Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, with $43,000; Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran, with $37,000; and Washington Democrat Patty Murray, with $36,980.
Kennedy, Ney, Hastert
Representative Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat, ranked second among recipients, taking in $115,000. He was followed by Ohio Republican Representative Robert Ney, with $56,500. House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois was fifth with $49,500.
Most of Kennedy's donations came from the Mississippi Choctaw tribe. Kennedy and Chief Phillip Martin are friends and the congressman has never met Abramoff, says Sean Richardson, Kennedy's top aide. Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt says the senator ``doesn't know Jack Abramoff, has never met him and has never dealt with anyone that he understood to work for him.''
About $18,000 of DeLay's donations came from the Saginaw Chippewas. Another $17,000 came from Abramoff. Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum had no comment.
`Troglodytes'
Abramoff, 46, instructed tribes to make donations to candidates and party committees, even as he referred to the Indian clients as ``morons'' and ``troglodytes'' in messages to Scanlon released at last year's Senate hearings.
Since then, DeLay has faced allegations that he violated House rules by accepting Abramoff-sponsored trips. He may face an ethics committee hearing.
Montana newspapers editorialized against Burns in March after a Washington Post story said he helped win a $3 million government award for the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan to build a school. The Interior Department ruled the tribe was ineligible because its Soaring Eagle casino makes it one of the richest, the Post reported.
The tribe, an Abramoff client, donated $32,000 to Burns from 2001 to 2003.
Burns, who was re-elected in 2000 with 51 percent of the vote, would get the backing of only 36 percent of Montanans in 2006, according to a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee poll taken after the Post story. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they would vote for someone else. The poll, which surveyed 602 likely voters from March 3-7, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Burns says he met Abramoff only once for 10 minutes in his office, and the lobbyist asked for nothing.
`Money From Everybody'
``We take money from everybody,'' Burns says. ``If they want to contribute to our campaign that's fine and dandy, but that doesn't alter my views on how we handle different situations.''
After the Post report, Burns hired lawyer Cleta Mitchell to conduct an internal review. She said there was no wrongdoing.
Ohio's Ney, chairman of the House Committee on Administration, which oversees campaign finance, has also faced scrutiny for ties to Abramoff. He's the only lawmaker to receive donations from both Abramoff and Scanlon.
Abramoff told the Tigua Indians of El Paso they should expect to make about $300,000 in campaign contributions as they fought to reopen their Speaking Rock casino, according to an e-mail between Abramoff and Tigua consultant Marc Schwartz released at a Senate hearing in November. Texas authorities shuttered the casino in February 2002.
`Going to Do Tigua'
Ney, 50, who was tapped by Abramoff to insert language in legislation allowing the Tiguas to reopen the casino, was the biggest recipient of that money. On March 20, 2002, Abramoff reported success in an e-mail to Scanlon.
``Just met with Ney!!!'' Abramoff wrote. ``We're f'ing gold!!! He's going to do Tigua.''
Six days later, Abramoff instructed Schwartz to have the tribe give $25,000 to Ney's American Liberty political action committee, the biggest single donation in Ney's decade-long career as a congressman.
The donation was so big that Ney had no place to put it, since federal law limits PAC donations to $5,000 a year. Ney set up a special ``soft money'' account for the Tigua cash.
He had to move fast: President George W. Bush signed a bill the next day -- March 27 -- making such accounts illegal after the November 2002 elections. The account was registered with the Internal Revenue Service in May and dissolved after the election.
Most of that money went to Ohio charities, Ney spokesman Brian Walsh says.
Lasting Impact?
The 2006 elections are 18 months away, allowing time for the Abramoff matter to fizzle. ``I'm not sure it will have that much effect,'' says Paul Findley, an Illinois Republican who left Congress in 1983. ``It depends upon the fate of Tom DeLay himself and the direction of the party.''
Still, a May 11-15 Pew Research Center poll found that voters' satisfaction with their representatives is about as low as it was before the Democrats lost control of the House in 1994.
``These generally unfavorable views may have political ramifications for incumbents seeking re-election in 2006,'' the Washington-based center said.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Mike Forsythe in Washington mforsythe@bloomberg.net;
Kristin Jensen in Washington kjensen@Bloomberg.net
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