|
March 11, 2002
On Traficant, Talk of Expulsion
By Damon Chappie If a Cleveland jury believes the stream of witnesses telling tales of
bribes, kickbacks, and piles of cash and convicts, Rep. James Traficant, the
flamboyant Ohio Democrat, may finally get his wish and be beamed up and out of
the House chamber by his colleagues. Expulsion - the political equivalent of the
death penalty - is a step so severe it has been taken only once since the Civil
War. But with Traficant stumbling badly against a solid wall of witnesses
describing more than 18 years of lucrative corruption, the possibility that he
may be expelled is beginning to be talked about in Congressional corridors.
"We haven't crossed this bridge in a long time," said a senior Democratic
aide in the House, "but the charges are very bad and the stuff that has been
coming out in the trial is very bad. The charges are so serious that if he is
found guilty, there are people who wouldn't be able to take it and want him
out."
Democrats may have the most to gain by expelling Traficant. Although he
represents a solidly Democratic district, Traficant has been a major thorn to
the House Democratic leadership, consistently voting with Republicans and even
supporting Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) for Speaker over Minority Leader Richard
Gephardt (Mo.).
Traficant, of course, has already been carved out of his Congressional
district and has vowed to run an uphill campaign as an Independent against
another incumbent, Rep. Tom Sawyer, a whistle-clean, eight-term Democrat who is
favored to win the May 7 primary.
Traficant has been charged with 10 felony counts of bribery, racketeering,
tax evasion, fraud and obstruction of justice. If convicted, he faces more than
60 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
Legal experts viewing the trial say Traficant is doing a terrible job of
representing himself. "He's getting killed," said Don Hanni, an Ohio criminal
defense attorney who is one of the lawmaker's closest friends. His
cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses have been particularly
self-destructive, with Traficant eliciting assertions from several of his former
employees that he is a liar. One witness, under questioning by the Congressman,
even suggested to the jury that Traficant may have been involved in a plot to
murder another potential witness.
The prosecution, meanwhile, has methodically produced dozens of witnesses
all telling of Traficant's alleged misdeeds, and the judge has controlled the
defendant's antics with an iron hand. Members of the jury, according to the
Youngstown Business-Journal, appear to be put off by Traficant, particularly
with some of his crude remarks during the proceedings.
Prosecutors appear likely to wrap up their case within two weeks.
Traficant's defense presentation remains unclear, and he has given few hints
about how he plans to conduct it. But the jury could get the case by the end of
the month.
If convicted, Traficant has already planned to appeal on a number of
issues. But the precedents of the House allow the Congressional disciplinary
process to begin as soon as the verdict is read.
Even after a felony conviction, Traficant would be allowed to vote on the
House floor.
The House rule concerning convicted felons who happen to be lawmakers
states only that they "should refrain" from legislative business; it doesn't
mean they must refrain.
And the prospect of having a convicted felon voting to make law has touched
off political firestorms and high drama in the recent past.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) launched a Congressional career
attacking ethically challenged colleagues just hours after he was sworn in as a
freshman in 1979, when he moved to expel then Rep. Charles Diggs (D-Mich.).
Diggs, a 13-term lawmaker from Detroit and leader of the Congressional
Black Caucus, was convicted in October 1978 on 29 counts of taking kickbacks
from his Congressional staff salaries and was sentenced to three years in
prison. Despite the conviction, he was re-elected in November.
Diggs defiantly continued to vote on the floor after his re-election and
said he would continue to do so until his appeals were exhausted. The Democratic
Caucus refused to restrain him, and Gingrich seized on the issue.
In a Washington Post op-ed, the freshman Member from Georgia imagined a
close vote on a law that passed because of Diggs' vote. "How can a Congressman
then go back to the people and ask them to obey what obviously is a
controversial law when it was passed by someone who flouts the law? The
legislative precedent and common sense both argue Charles Diggs should refrain
from voting."
Gingrich's move to expel Diggs was defeated; the Michigan Democrat was
ultimately censured by the House and resigned when he lost his court appeals.
Although unsuccessful, the attempt to oust Diggs opened the door for
Congress to move aggressively against wayward Members. The rules and politics of
expulsion set up very few speed bumps for lawmakers seeking to act quickly after
a jury conviction on felony counts.
The ultimate disciplinary power is vested in Article I, Section 5 of the
Constitution, allowing "Each House ... [to] punish its members for disorderly
behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member."
House rules permit any of the chamber's 435 Members to go to the floor and
offer a privileged resolution calling for immediate expulsion of a lawmaker.
Action on the resolution would have to take place within 48 hours.
Even though the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is
supposed to handle disciplinary matters, nothing in the rules prevents the
chamber from bypassing the often slow-moving panel to take immediate action.
In 1980 the House moved with almost lightning speed in a historic,
precedent-setting vote to eject then Rep. Michael "Ozzie" Myers (D-Pa.), the
first lawmaker to be convicted in the Abscam scandal.
Myers, a two-term, former longshoreman from South Philadelphia, was
convicted of taking $50,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents posing as Arab
sheiks in exchange for introducing private immigration legislation. He was
caught on videotape telling the fake sheiks "something real simple and short:
Money talks in this business and bulls- walks ... and it works that way down in
Washington."
A special screening room was set up near the floor and about 200 Members
dropped by to view the Myers video in the days leading up to the expulsion vote.
In the moments before the vote began on Oct. 2, 1980, Myers told his colleagues
from the well of the chamber that "I know now what it feels like to sit on death
row. As you go to the voting machine, keep in mind when you hit that button that
it will have the same effect of hitting the button if I were strapped into an
electric chair."
He was ousted by a vote of 376-30, a far larger margin than the 271 votes
needed for a two-thirds majority. Myers remained on the ballot but lost in
November. After leaving prison in 1985, he was last known to be tending bar in
Philadelphia.
The Myers expulsion set a number of precedents that may directly bear on
how Traficant may be handled. For one thing, Myers was the first and so far only
Member ever to be expelled because of official corruption. The three other House
expulsion cases came in the wake of the Civil War against lawmakers deemed to be
in league with the Confederacy.
Secondly, the House moved quickly - just five weeks after Myers was
convicted and before the appeals process was exhausted. And the expulsion came
just a month before the general election, demonstrating that lawmakers weren't
going to let Myers slide away simply because it was late in the electoral year.
Most troublesome Members, though, choose to avoid the heat and simply
resign their seats, according to Ralph Lotkin, who negotiated several
resignations during his tenure as chief counsel for the House ethics committee.
On Feb. 22, 1988, the ethics panel unanimously approved Lotkin's
recommendation to expel then Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.), who was convicted in
September 1987 of accepting illegal gifts. The House deferred acting on the
recommendation because Biaggi was on trial for related crimes and he later
resigned his seat.
After his 1995 conviction on sex and corruption charges, then Rep. Mel
Reynolds (D-Ill.) came under heavy, direct pressure from Gephardt and then
Minority Whip David Bonior (D-Mich.) to resign. He did so after a few days,
making the announcement on Larry King's talk show.
Both the Myers and Biaggi cases demonstrate that the House need not wait
until the convicted lawmaker exhausts court appeals. "The theory on appeals is
that the return of the conviction removes the presumption of innocence and you
can move on it," Lotkin said.
But he cautioned against a rush to judgment. "If you are going to do
something like this, which is the political death penalty, you have to do it
with all due process," he said. Typically, the ethics committee would obtain the
trial transcript and base a penalty recommendation on those proceedings. And the
committee rules would guarantee a public, televised sanctions hearing, which
Traficant may want to use as a forum to publicly plead his case and to portray
himself as the victim of an overarching government vendetta.
To bypass that spectacle, the House may decide to act on an expulsion
resolution without sending it to the ethics committee first.
In 1995, House Republicans demonstrated how quickly they could act. On Dec.
15 - just a week after a California jury convicted then Rep. Walter Tucker
(D-Calif.) on bribery charges - a privileged resolution to expel him was offered
on the House floor by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).
Tucker got the message and quickly resigned, making Sensenbrenner's motion
moot.
Even if Traficant is expelled, he won't lose his Congressional pension. The
law governing Congressional pensions states that the only crime warranting the
loss of retirement benefits is treason. According to the National Taxpayers
Union, Traficant would be entitled to a $38,000 annual pension even if he was
kicked out of the House this summer.
------------------------- "I have described [the BATF] properly as JACKBOOTED AMERICAN FASCISTS.
They have shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens or their property. They intrude without the slightest regard or concern." --Rep. John Dingell (D-16th/MI), Congressional Record, 02/08/1995 While we were sleeping, the enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat.
Matthew 13:25 Archibald Bard
ICQ 83834746 TO KEEP THE PEACE,
KEEP YOUR PIECE! |
Roll Call Current News.url
Description: Binary data
