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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

McMorris Rodgers ethics allegation deserves investigation

One year ago this week, the independent Office of Congressional Ethics determined unanimously that there was “substantial reason to believe that Representative (Cathy) McMorris Rodgers used congressional funds, staff, and office space for campaign activities.”

A complaint, filed with the OCE by a former key staffer in McMorris Rodgers’ office, also alleged that she improperly used taxpayer resources to produce a mailing and video for her effort to win a House leadership position, and that she used a political consultant paid for by her campaign to conduct official business. The OCE similarly concluded that there was “substantial reason” to believe those allegations as well.

The OCE turned the case over to the House Ethics Committee – a panel of 10 House members that has subpoena power to investigate complaints. And … the panel punted on first down.

In March of this year the ethics panel declined to open a formal investigation. That did not rule out further action, but neither did it dismiss the allegations. It was clear at the time that this meant the ethics inquiry would come after the primary and general elections.

So, the elections have come and gone, and the ethics committee has remained mum. It’s still an open matter, technically, but what that means is hard to discern. The former staffer who filed the complaint, Todd Winer, said in September that the committee expanded its inquiry to include his complaints that McMorris Rodgers attempted to “intimidate and punish” him.

The committee’s spokesman wouldn’t comment this month, referring me to the formal announcements the committee puts out. The last such announcement the committee put out in this case was in March.

McMorris Rodgers’ office says it is similarly in the dark.

“We have not heard from them in six months,” said spokesman Nate Hodson. “We stand ready to answer any questions they have.”

The congresswoman has denied these claims and filed a detailed rebuttal to the OCE report. Her attorney said the complaint is based on “frivolous allegations from a single source – a former employee who then discredited himself by admitting to his own improper conduct.”

Winer, the congresswoman’s former communications director, is indeed an unhappy former employee. Still, it’s hard to read the OCE report and not agree with the conclusion that there is “substantial merit” to the allegations. It’s hard – if we’re being asked to consider the single-source nature of the complaint – to ignore the fact that two key staffers tangled up in these allegations refused to cooperate at all with the OCE. Refused to puncture the frivolity of the complaints. If the allegations are all smoke and no fire, it’s a whole lot of smoke. Someone ought to check it out.

Whenever I hear an accusation that a politician has mixed campaign business with their official duties, I have the same response I do whenever I hear an accusation that a baseball player used steroids: Of course they did.

It’s slightly preposterous that we pretend such a distinction exists, as if the people who run for office stop running at some point and assume their higher calling as public servants. On the other hand, the idea that elected officials are funding their political campaigns with taxpayer dollars is repugnant. If these blurry lines are all just a pretense, there are rules and laws around this pretense, and the complaint against McMorris Rodgers says that she did not follow them.

When the OCE interviewed McMorris Rodgers, she said the rules in her office were clear.

“Congressional staff are not to do campaign work on official time or with official resources,” the OCE summary of her answer reads. “Any campaign work must be done on the staffer’s own time, which means after hours or on the weekend. The office has flexibility with hours. For example, a staffer may take an extended lunch break and work later in the evening to make up hours. Campaign work must be done outside of the office and without congressional equipment.”

If that’s so, then her staffers were doing a whole lot of volunteering. One wonders when they slept. Staffers worked on her debate preparations, wrote and edited campaign speeches, prepared and attended meetings with newspaper editorial boards for the purposes of securing endorsements, went to fundraisers, and took on other tasks. Winer said he was charged with writing letters to the editors of newspapers, responding to other letters on campaign issues.

The complaint focuses, in part, on trips to “the district” in October 2010 and April and October of 2012. These trips – timed specifically around upcoming elections – included both official and campaign business. McMorris Rodgers said the visits were mostly official business, but she counts a whole lot of electiony stuff as official – such as visiting editorial boards of newspapers to seek their endorsement and attending a fundraiser with Rick Santorum, who came to Spokane to campaign for Mitt Romney.

In his interview, Winer characterized at least one of the trips as entirely campaign-related: “When asked what official activities he performed while in the district in October 2010, the witness could not recall any and stated there may not have been any official activities.”

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.