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Fudge factor
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EDITORIALS
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A proposal by Rep. Marcia Fudge would gut the new congressional ethics office.
ALK ABOUT BLAMING the messenger. The newly created Office of Congression- al Ethics, an independent watchdog set up to review and, if warranted, forward ethics complaints to the official House
ethics committee for further action, has taken its mission seriously. Too seriously, it seems, for the comfort of some lawmakers. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), joined by 19 other members of the Con- gressional Black Caucus, last week introduced a resolution that would essentially neuter the ethics board, making it more difficult for OCE to launch investigations and inform the public of its findings. Ms. Fudge said in a statement that she acted to
make the process fairer; OCE, she said, “is current- ly the accuser, judge and jury.” It’s not too hard to imagine other motivations for Ms. Fudge’s con- cerns. Her chief of staff, Dawn Kelly Mobley, was admonished by the ethics committee for her role in helping a group of Black Caucus members im- properly obtain an all-expenses-paid trip to the Caribbean — this when Ms. Mobley was the ethics lawyer for Ms. Fudge’s predecessor, the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and Ms. Tubbs Jones was
Leadership, or
N THE DEBATE over illegal immigration, most of the passion, and the vitriol, comes from opponents. Unfortunately, they tend to be better at decrying and denouncing the problem than solving it. So it was no surprise that at a forum on a proposed day-laborer center in western Fairfax County the other night, most of the several hundred people who showed up were irate and opposed to the idea. Nor was it a sur- prise that none had a better idea for dealing with the several dozen workers — some illegal, some not — who hang out on the streets and sidewalks in the area now. Mostly, they just want the prob- lem, and the workers, to disappear. This is magical thinking, of course. The work- ers will not disappear — not from Centreville, where a local developer has proposed estab- lishing a day-laborer site on land he owns, and not nationally. Unless and until Congress acts, the best that communities can do is tackle the issue piecemeal and pragmatically. That is the approach taken by Albert Dwoskin,
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the developer, and Michael R. Frey (R-Sully), the member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervi- sors who represents the area. They would estab- lish the day workers site, possibly in a trailer be- hind Centreville Square shopping center, owned by Mr. Dwoskin, as a centralized, orderly and dis- creet facility to replace the haphazard status quo. No public money would be used. Their idea was met with disdain, fury, booing — and muddled thinking. Mostly, people com- plained about the situation as it exists, character- izing the workers seeking day jobs as intimidat- ing, dirty and unsightly. They suggested that the day workers are responsible for crime; in fact crime in the area is very low, according to police. They accused the workers of loitering; in fact, since they do not block exits and entrances, they are not loitering under state law. One man likened the workers, most of whom live nearby, have fami- lies and are law-abiding, to bird droppings. “Most everybody said, ‘Please send them home.’
Well, they didn’t say ‘please,’ ” said Mr. Dwoskin. “That I can’t do, and I can’t get anyone else to do it.”
The opponents’ champion is Del. Timothy D.
Hugo (R-Fairfax), who loves making hay — but changes nothing — by bashing illegal immigrants. Mr. Hugo would have Fairfax police officers issue tickets to the workers and anyone else — kids sell- ing lemonade, church groups offering car washes — engaged in roadside commerce. But county offi- cials, more interested in problem-solving than publicity, won’t go that route; even if they did, it would only shove the problem down the road a few miles. And the police, understaffed as they are, say it would be a misuse of resources to focus patrols on the day workers, a problem they regard as more about aesthetics and community sensibil- ities than criminality. Mr. Frey and Mr. Dwoskin want to address the problem. Mr. Hugo wants to score points off it. That’s the difference between leadership and grandstanding.
grandstanding?
Sound and fury won’t resolve the dispute over a proposed center for day laborers in Fairfax.
chairing the ethics committee. Four of the law- makers who went on the Caribbean trip signed on to Ms. Fudge’s resolution: Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Donald Payne (D- N.J.) and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.). Undercutting OCE’s authority would be back-
sliding. The point of creating an outside watchdog was to prevent the ethics committee from sweep- ing things under the rug; all those on the commit- tee are members of Congress. The panel is too of- ten inclined not only to dismiss a complaint but to do so quietly, without airing the evidence. Law- makers are understandably concerned that the ethics process not be used to tar them unfairly, providing fodder for attack ads in the next elec- tion, but there is also a public interest in full dis- closure and robust enforcement. So far, the OCE — which is made up of former members of Congress and experts chosen by the speaker and minority leader in equal numbers — has proved a helpful force, and the ethics panel’s unhappiness with the arrangement only underscores its importance. The Fudge resolution would prevent the ethics committee from issuing any public statement in
cases where the OCE recommends that a complaint be dismissed; the existing rule gives the ethics com- mittee discretion to release information in such sit- uations. Under the resolution, the OCE’s report on the defense earmarks-for-campaign-contributions lobbying scandal involving the PMA Group would never have seen the light of day. Similarly, the reso- lution would prevent the release of any OCE report if, after an investigation by the ethics committee, a complaint’s dismissal is recommended; under the current rule, the OCE report must be made public. This change would have prevented release of OCE’s findings in the Caribbean trip. In addition, the resolution would prevent the
OCE from looking into any matter except on the basis of “a sworn complaint from a citizen as- serting personal knowledge of any alleged vio- lation.” Currently, a preliminary review can be launched if two board members from differing parties ask for it. The board members are hardly rogue operators. That Ms. Fudge and friends fear their power to launch an investigation says less about the new ethics office than it does about the sponsors of this misguided resolution.
TOM TOLES
FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
dletters@washpost.com
The oil spill blame game
Carol M. Browner, the White House energy and
climate adviser, told CBS, “At the end of the day, the government tells BP what to do, and at the end of the day, we will hold BP accountable for all of this” [“Oil could spew until August, officials say,” news story, May 31]. In this one simple statement we see the hu- bris and flawed vision of the Obama administration. In various ways, the president, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Ms. Browner have all said that the government is in charge of everything, but it is BP that must pay for everything and BP that will be held accountable. And some environmental experts say the government lacks (appropriately, in my opinion) the technical expertise to solve the problem. So, the government makes the decisions, spends
BP’s money and can still point the finger at them “at the end of the day.” What a great deal for the govern- ment! What a terrible way to solve problems.
ROBERTE. MURPHY, Towson
What is GM doing with our money?
Steven Rattner [“Automaker’s new math,” op-ed,
June 1], former “car czar and GM bailout architect,” dismissed my observation that General Motors paid back a loan from the taxpayers with other funds from the taxpayers. That raises another question: After the loan was repaid, why did GM take every last pen- ny ($6.6 billion) of the funds left over in the taxpayer- funded escrow account that it used to “repay” the loan, if GM doesn’t really need the money, as Mr. Rattner claimed? A GM spokesman also was quoted as saying GM doesn’t need this taxpayer money. I asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about the $6.6 billion during a Senate oversight hearing on May 4. I didn’t get an answer that day and, a month later, taxpayers still haven’t been told why GM was allowed to take $6.6 billion of “un- needed” taxpayer funds.
CHUCKGRASSLEY,Washington
The writer, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Iowa.
Health reform and Medicare
I am a Medicare participant and have received the much-talked-about brochure from the Department of Health and Human Services explaining what the new health-care law means to me [“New law comes with a brochure,” In the Loop, May 28]. I found it most informative in clearing up some of the misinformation the Republicans put out during the run-up to the enactment of the law and since. Exactly what they are complaining about now with regard to this brochure is unclear. In simple English, it provides details to let seniors know what to expect in services and benefits. There is no propaganda that I could find. There is only one reason the Re- publicans would make a big deal out of this: to con- tinue their partisan attacks against anything the Obama administration does. It’s time to start acting like mature adults, think of
what’s best for the country — and get rid of political agendas.
MIKE SNEED, Reston
Personal virtue in the public sphere
James A. Morone [“Unoriginal sins,” Outlook,
Perfect in our book
Baseball shows Washington real contrition and forgiveness.
W
HEN APPEALS COURT Judge John Roberts, seeking confirmation to be- come Supreme Court chief justice, fa- mously said that his job would be “to
call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat,” no doubt many major league umpires scoffed in- wardly. “He makes it sound so easy,” they may have thought. Now we have confirmation of their in- tuition. How much simpler it must have been on Thursday merely to ponder Miranda warnings or same-sex marriage than to be Jim Joyce. Mr. Joyce, for those of you who don’t follow the
sports pages, was a respected and relatively anony- mous major league umpire until he blew a call for the ages on Wednesday night at Comerica Park in Detroit. An unheralded Detroit pitcher, Armando Galarraga, 28, was on the verge of that rarest of pitching achievements, a perfect game. He had faced 26 Indians and retired 26 Indians. The 27th —and should-have-been final — batter, Jason Don- ald, hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield. He was thrown out, the Tigers began to celebrate — and then Mr. Joyce, almost unimaginably, signaled that the runner was safe. In fact, the throw had beaten the runner. But if the umpire calls you safe, you are safe. Mr. Galarraga shook his head, smiled gamely and returned to the mound to get one more out. He then repaired to his dugout with a one-hit shutout — and what seemed destined to be the most famous imperfect pitching performance in history.
Now some of the most eminent students of the game, including our colleagues Dave Sheinin and Tom Boswell, are urging baseball commissioner Bud Selig to overrule the bad call and retroactively declare the game to be perfect. In an unscientific survey Thursday, some 80 percent of washington-
post.com readers agreed. So far Mr. Selig has issued only a throat-clearing statement full of congratula- tions all around and a promise to “consult with all appropriate parties, including our two unions and the Special Committee for On-Field Matters.” A statement, in other words, that Washingtonians could relate to, except that we’d be calling the com- mittee the SCOFM by now. On the other hand, Washingtonians might find the behavior of the two principals of the story star- tlingly and refreshingly unfamiliar. As soon as the game was over and he had a chance to see the re- play, Mr. Joyce acknowledged his error and apolo- gized, both publicly and personally to Mr. Galarra- ga. Mr. Galarraga, after popping a beer and briefly contemplating his bad luck, gracefully accepted Mr. Joyce’s apology. “I don’t blame them a bit for any- thing that was said,” Mr. Joyce said. “I would’ve said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would’ve been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me.” Said the pitcher: “You don’t see an um- pire after the game come out and say, ‘Hey, let me tell you I’m sorry.’ He felt really bad. He didn’t even shower.” In the face of such sportsmanship, Mr. Se- lig’s deliberations seem essentially irrelevant.
LOCAL OPINIONS
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Unsportsmanlike behavior off the field
When University of Virginia lacrosse coach Dom Starsia uses the phrase “play hard, party hard,” I hope that he doesn’t mean “hard” in the same sense for both activities [“Starsia’s teams succeed in good times and bad,” Sports, May 29]. “Playing hard” in the context of contact sports like lacrosse, football and hockey means lots of physical roughness and ex- treme aggressiveness, especially at the championship level; these traits are encouraged by coaches during athletic competition but are clearly inappropriate when “partying,” hard or otherwise. It seems unlikely that adolescent and young adult athletes play- ing contact sports are all able to make this dis-
Can student athletes tell the difference between playing hard and partying hard?
tinction. And since when did the campus police, the city police and the university administration hand over their responsibility for discipline of one group of students (athletes) to the coaches? At the least, one presumes that coaches would report criminal activity (e.g. aggravated assault) to the authorities. We need to remind ourselves
that universities (including coaches) are supposed to in- culcate the values of good citi-
zenship beyond the athletic field just as they fos- ter the values of teamwork and winning. Per- haps the term “sportsmanship” needs to be redefined and reinforced at all levels.
ALLAN R. GLASS, Bethesda
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May 23] wrote of three “moralizing streaks [that] run through American culture and history,” which he identified as Puritanism, the “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” idealistic politician and the social gos- pel. But he wrongly used the last of those strains to criticize those of us interested in championing per- sonal virtue. The effectiveness of morality politics, no matter which of the three strains is being considered, is not nearly as important as what morality parents teach and model in the home and what morality is taught and modeled at our various places of worship. None- theless, governments have a role and, whatever it is, “worrying . . . about teen sex” and “ministering to our neighbors” are not mutually exclusive; in fact, the former is just a flavor of the latter Moreover, when Mr. Morone identified disparities in health, education, wealth and wages as national sins, and certainly not delinquent kids, single moms or drug abusers, he seemed to forget that so many of the disparities in health, education, wealth and wages arise from delinquent kids becoming drug us- ers who then become absent fathers and single mothers. Recalling that George Washington said that morality is an “indispensable support” to this country, we separate personal virtue and vice from their social ramifications at great risk.
CHRIS STEVENSON, Purcellville
Feeding Montgomery’s watchdog
The May 25 Metro story “Watchdog’s claims of in-
terference disputed” suggested that recommended budget reductions for Montgomery County’s Office of Inspector General were disproportionate to those made in most of county government. But the original recommended reduction of 10 percent was far less than the reductions in most areas outside public safety and safety net services. For example, there were 23 percent reductions in both libraries and recreation, 15 percent in transportation and more than 26 percent in County Executive Isiah Leggett’s office. Ultimately, Mr. Leggett approved a budget that increases spending for the Office of Inspector Gen- eral by nearly 4 percent for the coming fiscal year — making that office almost the only agency in county government to get an increase in these difficult fis- cal times. When he was a County Council member, Mr. Leggett wrote the legislation that created the Of- fice of Inspector General. And as county executive he has supported that role at every turn because the function is a critical piece of good government.
PATRICK LACEFIELD, Rockville
The writer is director of public information for Montgomery County.
CORRECTION
The May 31 editorial “China’s Korea crisis” mis- spelled the name of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
d
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