RECOVERED HISTORY

CONGRESS HANDLES ITS OWN IN DIFFERENT WAYS

HISTORY NEWS NETWORK - "What is scandalous in one decade" says Shelley
Ross, author of Fall from Grace, "is business as usual in another." "In
1832," she writes, "Representative William Stanbery (D-Ohio) was
censured merely for suggesting that the House Speaker's eyes might be
'too frequently turned from the chair you occupy toward the White
House.' But forty years later, when Representative James A. Garfield
(R-Ohio) admitted accepting stock from Credit Mobilier of America at a
time when the company needed legislative favors, he not only escaped
censure, he was elected president."

In 1838 Kentucky Rep. William Jordan Graves (Whig), a protege of Henry
Clay, shot and killed Maine Rep. Jonathan Cilley (Dem.) in a duel.
Ministers from the pulpit denounced dueling and demanded that Graves be
punished. He was censured but not expelled.

In 1856 Rep. Preston Brooks (D-SC) beat Sen. Charles Sumner (R-MA) with
a gutta-percha cane. The blows rained down on Sumner's head as he tried
but failed to stand up from his desk on the floor of the Senate. With
the whiff of civil war in the air the House could not settle on a
punishment. Brooks resigned but then took office again after a quick
election. (A few months later he died of liver failure.). . .

In 1980 eight members of Congress were implicated in the Abscam scandal;
many were caught on videotape accepting cash bribes of up to $50,000
from a phony Arab sheik. Sen. Harrison Williams (D-NJ) refused to resign
until it became clear he would be expelled. Four of the members of
Congress convicted of bribery resigned; one had to be expelled.
Congressman Jack Murtha (D-PA) escaped punishment when he agreed to
cooperate with prosecutors.

Two members of Congress were accused in the early 1980s of having sex
with pages. Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) held a news conference with the 17
year old male page he was involved with and refused to apologize, saying
the affair involved two consenting adults. Studds was censured by the
House but re-elected by his constituents. Rep. Daniel Crane (R-IL)
admitted having sex with a female page and apologized. He was also
censured by the House but subsequently was voted out of office.

Two speakers have been forced from office after becoming enmeshed in
scandals, both in the last generation. In 1989 Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX)
was forced to resign after the House Ethics Committee concluded he had
improperly earned thousands of dollars in bogus book royalties after he
arranged for special interests to buy up copies of his vanity press
book, Reflections of a Public Man. The man behind the investigation was
Newt Gingrich (R-GA). In 1997 Gingrich, who became Speaker in 1995 after
the Republicans took control of Congress, was himself accused of
violating House ethics after it was disclosed that he had taken tax-free
donations for teaching a course used to promote the fortunes of the
Republican Party. (Gingrich was found to have misled the House Ethics
Committee about the involvement of his Republican pac in the development
of the course.) Ordered to pay a $300,000 fine, he subsequently resigned
from office after heavy Republican losses in t! he 1998 elections.

In 1999 Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) was elected Speaker after Rep. Bob
Livingston (R-LA) tearfully confessed to a stunned House of
Representatives that he had cheated on his wife. The confession followed
the failed Republican attempt to remove President Bill Clinton from
office in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

http://hnn.us/articles/17249.html

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