Over the last couple of years, Congress has grown lax in its willingness to enforce its own rules, which in turn has led to an environment in which questionable conduct — some borderline illegal, others blatantly criminal — has become a little too common.
According to an interesting article in Time magazine, many at the Department of Justice are looking up at Capitol Hill and thinking, “If those guys won’t start policing themselves, we’ll do it for them.”
The Justice Department has a message for Congress: clean up your house or else we may have to do it for you. A senior federal law enforcement official told TIME that the paralyzed and often lax House ethics committee has created a vacuum that prosecutors won’t hesitate to fill. The House’s internal mechanism for keeping corruption in check is “broken,” says the official.
By contrast, current criminal probes of lawmakers are expanding rapidly. Like the Abramoff probe, the investigation into former Republican Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham from San Diego is also widening. Last week, defense contractor Mitchell Wade OF MZM, INC. pleaded guilty to supplying more than $1 million of the $2.4 million in bribes Cunningham previously admitted taking in a scheme that touches Defense Department officials and two other members of Congress. A Defense Department spokesman tells TIME that “there is an ongoing review by appropriate organizations within the Department” as to whether the Cunningham- and MZM-linked intelligence contracts would have compromised any Pentagon intelligence programs.
As Time noted, lawmakers who find themselves in legal jeopardy will often argue that Congress should deal with its own. The underpinning of this is a provision of the Constitution, intended to keep Congress independent, which grants “a limited immunity” to members from prosecution when the conduct involved official legislative activities.
But, thanks to a whole slew of scandals, the limits of this defense are straining under enormous weight. Congress has given up on oversight of the Bush administration, but the institution also no longer bothers to hold its own members accountable either.
There are complications associated with the Justice Department swooping in with federal investigations against sitting lawmakers, but if lawmakers want to avoid this fate, they can either a) start policing themselves; or b) stop the activities that raise so many questions about possible corruption. It’s their call.