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FGHIJ The Waters case
an independent newspaper EDITORIALS
T A House Democrat’s questionable ethics
HE FEDERAL Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was costly but neces- sary — and successful. Still, federal aid to banks is never risk-free; one danger is the appearance, or reality, of politi-
cal manipulation. With the Office of Congres- sional Ethics’ announcement Monday of formal charges against the House Financial Services Committee’s No. 3 Democrat, Rep. Maxine Wa- ters (Calif.), this risk has materialized. Before TARP was created — but while the Bush administration was working with Ms. Wa- ters’s committee on the financial crisis — Ms. Waters pressed Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson to meet with African American bank- ers. The topic was to be the federal takeover of Fannie Mae, which had wiped out millions of dollars in Fannie Mae stock held by minority- owned banks. Mr. Paulson made top aides available, expect- ing a discussion of black-owned banks’ plight generally. Instead, the meeting, on Sept. 9,
Ms. Alsobrooks for state’s attorney
A no-nonsense prosecutor in Prince George’s County
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RINCE GEORGE’S County prosecutors have botched an embarrassing number of high-profile cases in recent years. In a par- ticularly mortifying one two years ago, the
jury in a first-degree murder trial aquitted a de- fendant who acted as his own attorney. Still, giv- en the office’s rock-bottom salaries, severe short- age of lawyers and crushing caseloads, it’s a won- der that prosecutors haven’t fumbled more often. Credit Glenn Ivey, the level-headed state’s attor- ney in Prince George’s for the past eight years, with doing a fair job under daunting conditions. Mr. Ivey’s planned departure has triggered a
scramble to succeed him among five candidates in the Democratic primary on Sept. 14. The win- ner will oversee 75 prosecutors and thousands of criminal cases each year. (No Republicans are seeking the job.) The best of the bunch is Angela Alsobrooks, who combines prosecutorial ex- perience, management skill, intellectual agility and deft political instincts. She will need all that to improve a struggling office. Ms. Alsobrooks, a Prince George’s native, has
been executive director of the Prince George’s Revenue Authority for the past six years, meaning she runs an agency that oversees the county’s parking meters and public parking lots, an $11million annual enterprise. Before that, she worked in the county executive’s office on educa- tion issues and, for five years, as a Prince George’s prosecutor handling domestic violence cases and a range of serious felonies. Smart, personable, direct and tough-minded,
Ms. Alsobrooks would make a strong lobbyist for the state grants and increased county funding the prosecutor’s office badly needs, and an effective advocate for outreach and intervention pro- grams. She has a firm handle on the county’s high rate of recidivism, domestic violence and gang ac- tivity, and a no-nonsense strategy to improve the quality and consistency of prosecutions. Her rivals include Mark K. Spencer, the police
department’s inspector general and a former No. 2 in the state’s attorney’s office, and Joseph Wright, the current deputy director of the office’s district court division. Both are respected pros- ecutors, but they lack the temperament and pub- lic relations skills to run an operation as complex as this one. Another candidate, Peggy Magee, a former prosecutor and the current clerk of the court, is a well-regarded manager, but her politi- cal savvy is questionable. The fifth candidate, and by far the best-
financed, is Thomas Dernoga, a term-limited member of the County Council. He is simply not qualified to be the state’s attorney. Although he knows the county’s budget and land-use laws well, Mr. Dernoga has never worked as a prosecu- tor, nor even as a criminal defense lawyer; in fact, he hasn’t practiced law of any sort in almost a decade. Lacking that basic background and fa- miliarity with criminal law, Mr. Dernoga has no business running a prosecutor’s office in one of Maryland’s biggest and most crime-ridden coun- ties.
2008, was dominated by representatives of OneUnited Bank, who asked for direct aid to their bank and others. This was awkward, to say the least: Ms. Waters’s husband was a major shareholder and had been a board member of OneUnited. Ms. Waters herself is a former shareholder. After the meeting, Mr. Paulson pointedly told Ms. Waters that he had expected a “larger turnout.” Ms. Waters seems to have realized this might not look entirely proper. According to the ethics office’s report — which was prepared a year ago — she told the Financial Services Committee chairman, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), that she was in a quandary as to how to handle OneUnited’s pleas for help. Mr. Frank urged her to let him handle the matter, although it’s not clear whether the two spoke before or after the meeting at Treasury. In any case, Mr. Frank in- serted language into the TARP bill, signed by President George W. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008, en- abling OneUnited to draw $12 million in aid.
For all its connections to Ms. Waters and Mr.
Frank, OneUnited was not necessarily the likeli- est candidate for a bailout. It had a mixed rec- ord of lending to minority communities and had run afoul of regulators for buying its executives a Porsche. OneUnited has missed all but one of six scheduled dividend payments to the Trea- sury. Mr. Frank has never denied his role and has said he acted to prevent the Fannie Mae col- lapse from bringing down a minority-owned in- stitution based partly in his state. Ms. Waters denies wrongdoing. We can’t say
yet whether she technically violated House Rule 23, which forbids members from using their in- fluence for personal profit. But this sure has an unethical whiff to it. Ms. Waters never should have called Mr. Paulson. Nor should she have approached Mr. Frank. And given what’s hap- pened since, the committee chairman probably should have kept out of the case himself. Cer- tainly taxpayers would have been better off if he had.
TOM TOLES
TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2010
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
dletters@washpost.com
No license for this ‘DMV’ Regarding the July 30 Style story “Welcome to the
DMV,” on renaming the area encompassing the Dis- trict, Maryland and Virginia the DMV: I propose that it has been too long since this idea’s proponents have been outside the Beltway. Despite The Post’s having used the acronym from time to time, if anyone elsewhere in the country said he was going to the DMV, all listeners would assume he was going to get his driver’s license renewed. DMV has been done already. Rather, if nickname you must, I, with tongue firm- ly in cheek, propose the short, catchy and apt POT. Why?
Because the area described is truly a melting pot, boasting more ethnicities than anywhere else in the country.
Because the POTomac runs through it. Because most residents of the area came here to
get their piece of the great monetary pot created by big-government funding.
Because it aptly describes the appliance that our most illustrious residents — members of Congress — ought to get off of.
MARYWOOLSEY, Fairfax
As soon as I saw the headline in The Post, I thought: Oh, some information about the Depart- ment of Motor Vehicles! What out-of-towner came up with “DMV”? If we were to use anything close to that, the letters should read “DCMV” for alphabetical order, or in geo- graphical order, perhaps “MDCV,” or hey, why not “M-DC-V”? Then again, why do this at all? JOAN LASKEY, College Park
The side effects of Arizona’s law
The Obama administration has used a bizarre double standard in dealing with the Arizona immi- gration law and medical marijuana. The usurpation of federal prerogatives in the case of Arizona’s immi- gration laws pales in comparison to the egregious flaunting of violations of federal law and interna- tional treaty obligations created by state and local approval of smoked marijuana. The right way to handle medical marijuana is to submit the issue to the Food and Drug Administra- tion for judgment regarding the safety and efficacy of smoked marijuana for medicinal uses. If ap- proved, medical marijuana should be prescribed and dispensed just as are all other medicines, espe- cially controlled substances. The Obama administration, AWOL on medical
marijuana, is permitting — if not encouraging — a menacing precedent for the political approval of medicines.
ROBERT L. DUPONT, Rockville
The writer is president of the Institute for Behavior and Health and a founding director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
It appears that Eugene Robinson is incapable of appreciating that those of us who support the Ari- zona immigration law could be acting in good faith [“Judge Bolton’s gift to the GOP,” op-ed, July 30]. Thus, we are “demagogues,” “anti-Latino” and “anti-immigrant.”Moreover, he blithely assumed all Hispanics oppose the law and will vote Democratic as a result. Contrary to what Mr. Robinson wrote, supporters of the Arizona law do not oppose immi- gration; we oppose illegal immigration. Further- more, many Hispanics, myself included, are more likely to vote Republican rather than Democratic if the Democratic Party insists on a condescending policy that presumes all Hispanics are against the Arizona law.
NÉSTOR ENRIQUE CRUZ, Annandale Crack breakthrough
The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 corrects a longtime wrong in cocaine penalties.
to reduce the 100-to-1 sentencing disparities be- tween crack and powder cocaine; the Senate ap- proved the proposal in the spring. The president is expected to sign the bill on Tuesday. For the past three decades, those arrested for
C
crack offenses — mostly young, African American men — faced far harsher penalties than the white and Hispanic suspects most often caught with powder cocaine. A person found holding 500 grams of powder cocaine would face a five-year mandatory minimum; crack offenders would have to be in possession of a mere 5 grams to face the same obligatory sentence. Crack offenders faced a 10-year mandatory minimum for carrying 10 grams of the drug; the same penalty would not kick in for a powder-cocaine suspect unless caught with 1,000 grams. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the disparity to 18 to 1. An offender would have to be convicted of peddling 28 grams or more of crack to be hit with a five-year mandatory sentence. A
ONGRESS TOOK a courageous and his- toric step last week toward making the criminal justice system more fair. House lawmakers embraced a measure
10-year prison term would be handed down for 280 grams or more. (Penalties for powder offens- es are unchanged.) The legislation also elimi- nates a mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession — a significant advance in and of it- self.
Some critics of the crack sentences have pushed for complete elimination of the dis- parities. But this ignores some data that crack has a slightly more powerful and immediate ad- dictive effect and more quickly devastates the us- er physically than does powder cocaine. It also fails to acknowledge the higher levels of violent crime associated with crack. The 18:1 compro- mise fairly reflects this reality. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Dur-
bin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) deserve credit for hammering out the compromise and shepherding the bill through the Senate; House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) were instrumental in ad- vancing the bill in the House. Much credit also belongs to Families Against Mandatory Mini- mums, which for years pushed relentlessly for a fair corrective to the abusive sentencing laws.
FREE FOR ALL
‘Jersey Shore’: Kicking sand in the face of a great heritage Hank Stuever’s July 29 Style article, “ ‘Jersey
Shore’ goes south; hasn’t it always?,” previewed the second season of the reality TV show “Jersey Shore,” in which the characters spend the win- ter in Miami’s South Beach. The National Italian American Foundation
(NIAF) commends Mr. Stuever for underscoring some excellent points but wishes to emphasize the negative impact of the show on its audience and popular culture. Mr. Stuever noted the dam- aging effects of stereotypes but neglected to condemn them. He saw an “inebriating result on the viewer” that eliminated the past and fu- ture and focused on a present free of responsi- bilities. The characters’ activities — gym, tanning, laundry during the day, “drinking, gyrating,
brawling — with intermittent, carnal baptisms in their roiling hot tub” at night — are described as “a complex show about the nature of sin” rather than a cultural example that promotes debauchery and bad behavior to young viewers. The NIAF has gone on record since the show’s debut condemning its depiction of a false “real- ity” in which people make a living by disre- specting their great heritage and demeaning themselves. We implore MTV to focus on responsible be-
havior and stop promoting cultural stereotypes. People are watching only in disgusted fascina- tion.
JOSEPH V. DELRASO, Washington
The writer is president of the National Italian American Foundation.
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AIDS money must be a priority In his July 29 news story, “Rage, panic in AIDS
fight,” David Brown reported that the United States is “on track to spend less than planned” on HIV/ AIDS treatment. President Obama’s senior adviser on health care, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, justifies the funding allocation with the claims that “we can’t treat our way out of the HIV-AIDS epidemic.” But treating our way out is indeed possible. A study reported at last month’s International AIDS Conference demonstrated that provision of antiretroviral therapy in British Columbia halved the rate of new infections. The Economist said the study is “the strongest confirmation yet that treat- ment and prevention are two sides of the same coin.” Given that the provision of antiretroviral treatment can lead to prevention, eradication of new HIV infections is possible. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a physician, has in- troduced the HIV/AIDS Saves Lives First Act of 2010, which increases the number of patients re- ceiving HIV/AIDS treatment by enacting solutions that emphasize cost-effectiveness and efficiency. The bill could help save an additional 2 million lives and prevent babies from contracting HIV/AIDS. I urge Mr. Obama and Democrats to endorse Mr.
Coburn’s bill. ANANDREDDI, Aurora, Colo.
The writer is a member of the board of directors of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
Before he died in 2008, my husband, Rep. Tom
Lantos (D-Calif.), spoke often about the Lantos- Hyde law, which reauthorized the U.S. Global AIDS Programand was the last major piece of legislation he authored. A Holo- caust survivor, he cared deeply about human rights and saw HIV/AIDS as a defining moral issue for our time. He would have been deeply disappointed by the rapid deceler- ation of U.S. funding for global HIV/AIDS programs. A tiny fraction of
The late Rep. Tom Lantos
the U.S. budget is needed to fully fund the programs authorized by the Lantos-Hyde law. To some, in- creasing funds for HIV/AIDS treatment and preven- tion is a burden on the U.S. taxpayer. Instead, it should be seen as an investment that has already paid for itself many times over in goodwill toward our country and hope restored in African families and communities.
ANNETTE LANTOS, Concord, N.H.
The writer is chairman of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice.
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