Murtha’s alleged ‘ethics problem’

November 21, 2005

It was, unfortunately, terribly predictable. Almost immediately after Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) delivered his now-famous remarks about the war, his Republican colleagues began hinting that Murtha ran afoul of House ethics and they’d push for a formal Ethics Committee investigation. Kevin mentioned this rather clumsy attempt at intimidation the other day, but before the “Murtha has an ethics problem” meme takes root on the right, it’s worth taking a moment to consider how weak the case against Murtha really is.

Earlier this year, the LA Times ran a front-page story about Murtha and his lobbyist brother. The paper made it seem like there was some serious funny business going on. There wasn’t.

When Congress passed the $417-billion Pentagon spending bill last year, Rep. John P. Murtha, the top Democrat on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, boasted about the money he secured to create jobs in his Pennsylvania district.

But the bill Murtha helped write also benefited at least 10 companies represented by a lobbying firm where his brother, Robert “Kit” Murtha, is a senior partner, according to disclosure records, interviews and an analysis of the bill by The Times.

KSA Consulting represents about two dozen small- and medium-sized defense firms. Like every other military-related lobbying firm, KSA encourages members of Congress who oversee defense appropriations to help finance projects done by its clients. In this case, KSA had modest success — its clients received a total of $20.8 million from the spending bill.

The accusation isn’t that those defense firms didn’t deserve the money, or that they were charging too much, or that they’ll produce items the Pentagon doesn’t want. Instead, this alleged scandal is that Murtha’s brother is a KSA employee, and Murtha is on the House committee that was lobbied.

And why is that scandalous? It’s not.

The closer one looks at the story, the less apparent the problem becomes. Indeed, there’s no evidence that Rep. Murtha’s brother lobbied his sibling directly and no evidence that Murtha’s brother was involved in any way in securing appropriations for KSA clients.

In fact, Ken Stalder, KSA’s founder, chief executive and lead lobbyist, said Rep. Murtha’s brother has never lobbied his brother or any other House member. “Having him on staff doesn’t help me with Congressman Murtha’s office,” he said in an interview in his office. “I don’t [accept some business propositions] because of Kit, because it might look funny.”

So, KSA is not only playing by the rules, it’s going one step further to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Some House Republicans seriously believe this is worthy of an ethics investigation? Are they kidding?

Most in the GOP do not understand the meaning of “avoid[ing] the appearance of impropriety.” They feel, instead, that they are entitled, so impropriety or avoiding it, are not even a consideration..

  • CB, you’re assuming they care whether the attacks have merit. Did the Swift Boat guys care? No. It’s about smearing, not about facts. The right lies a lot and this is just another example.

  • There is an angle on this story which was missed when it first broke this Summer.

    On June 12th the San Diego Union Tribune broke the story of Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s sweet heart deal on a house.
    http://tinyurl.com/7mrxc
    On June 13th the LATimes broke the story of Murtha’s brother.
    http://tinyurl.com/a53e5
    Cunningham and Murtha both sit on the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
    http://tinyurl.com/a95st
    My guess at the time was that the “Duke” was the the source of the Murtha story. It didn’t help Duke. I doesn’t look like it will help Bush.

  • Perhaps if they investigate this, they’ll check into that little company called Haliburton at the same time?

  • There is no logic to the trashing of Murtha. It’s the knee-jerk, involuntary reflex of anyone infected with Bushism to slime anyone suspected of heresy (i.e., un-Bushite behavior). Our Vice-President of Torture Cheney seems to actually get off from such activity; the rest of them just do it routinely anymore.

  • Does this mean we can finally go ahead and launch that ethics shooting war in congress that the Dems have been pussyfooting about all year?

  • The LA Times article is way off base concerning Murtha and KSA. There are several salient points that the article omits.

    1) Rep Murtha’s brother, Kit, worked for Westinghouse with the same function as he does for KSA, interfacing to state legislators.

    2) KSA services small to mid sized clients mainly due to the fact that their founder, Ken Stalder, has expertise as a Navy veteran who helped to design and develop the concept of operations for the Navy’s Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers. It is well known in the industry that Ken’s expertise in understanding a small company’s new technology and how to apply that technology to become part of a military system would be the reason why small and mid sized companies would select KSA.

    3) Rep Murtha has visited Iraq and US combat zones more than almost any politician and he doesn’t just meet with the Generals. He always insists on meeting with the foot soldiers to understand their views and opinions, so he can go back to Washington to fight for funding that is needed most by the troops. He does this without press coverage. Murtha was one of the first politicians to recognize the shortfall of body armor and armored humvees for our troops and he took action to fix the problem.

    4) The Press doesn’t really understand the Appropriations process and specifically they don’t understand that THE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE makes all earmark decisions – not individual legislators like Rep Murtha. Although Rep Murtha has influence on the defense appropriations subcommittee, the chairman also reviews all project funding requests. The committee and a large professional staff for both the house and senate review each funding request and then they talk to the military to validate the need for specific requests. The staffers perform a considerable amount of due diligence to select the earmarks that ultimately get into the bill based on the merits of the various project requests. This process is intended to weed out unnecessary projects. The staffers then develop their party’s negotiation positions and brief their members who then have to hash out the details to come up with a compromise for the final bill. If KSA’s clients tend to be more successful it would be because of their expertise in figuring out how to make a client’s product fit into the future plans and requirements of a military or government organization. The LA TIMES headline “Lobbyist’s Brother Guided House Bill” is misleading if you understood how the process really works. If you visit KSA’s web site you will see that KSA navigates their clients through the military and Congressional bureaucracies which includes Attending Program Reviews, visiting military facilities and talking to warriors to understand their needs.

  • as stated from Political animal……If the glove doesnt fit you…..Oppsss, I mean Murtha must really dislike his brother as the other firms get ALL DEFENSE FIRMS LEAST $20M/PER CLIENT….

    THE SMEAR MACHINE CRANKS UP AGAIN….I guess John Murtha’s call for withdrawal from Iraq really has Republicans scared — and we know what that means. Today, congressional Republicans cranked up their all-too-familiar smear machine by suggesting that Murtha has violated House ethics rules. This is based on an LA Times article from last June which revealed that last year’s defense spending bill included $20 million that went to companies represented by KSA Consulting, a firm that employs Murtha’s brother.

    You can read the story for yourself, but all I have to say is this: if the best that KSA could do for its clients was $20 million out of a $417 billion appropriations bill, Murtha must not like his brother very much. That’s a rounding error.

    —Kevin Drum 9:42 PM Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (296)

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