A handful of people in DC are following up on the story from earlier this week on the attempted bribe of a Michigan congressman for his vote on the GOP Medicare bill.
To review briefly, Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), who’s set to retire from Congress next year, had indicated to his party’s leadership that he would vote against the Medicare legislation supported by the White House. As Slate’s Tim Noah explained in a recent column, GOP leaders, recognizing that Smith’s son is one of five Republicans planning a run for his dad’s seat next year, threatened to support one of his son’s rivals Smith he voted against the Medicare bill. At the same time, Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for for a ‘yea’ vote. (Smith voted against the bill anyway)
By any reasonable definition, this was a crime. GOP leaders attempted to bribe a fellow member of Congress on the House floor. Thankfully, a few are following up on this.
First up is Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who wrote to John Ashcroft urging a Justice Department investigation into the allegations.
“We are not optimistic that you will pursue this, as you have ignored past examples of potentially criminal activity by top Republican officeholders, but we would be remiss if we failed to bring this to your attention,” McAuliffe told Ashcroft. (The whole letter is available at Talking Points Memo)
Better yet, the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan campaign watchdog group, sent a similar request to the Justice Department and the House ethics committee yesterday.
The national media hasn’t picked up on the story just yet — no articles in any of the major dailies and no mention on TV — but if this keeps up, maybe this could go somewhere. It’s worth a shot.