By Alex Knott, CQ Staff

Lawmaker trips sponsored by outside groups have decreased by 56 percent since the ethics and lobbying overhaul law was enacted two years ago, according to a CQ MoneyLine study of congressional travel.

Since then, more than 2,300 former sponsors of lawmaker trips, including many corporations, government contractors and other groups that lobby, have stopped paying for such travel. Meanwhile, the average amount of money still spent on lawmaker-related travel by outside groups has dropped from $250,000 a month to $110,000 a month.

“This is a sign that the law is working as intended … It takes most of the influence peddling out of these trips,” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, one of the watchdog groups that pushed for tougher ethics restrictions on lawmakers and lobbyists.

The law (PL 110-81), which was enacted in 2007 in response to of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, was designed to prevent lobbyists and their clients from using trips to help push an agenda or influence specific legislation. But it did not eliminate all outside-sponsored trips, and many groups and institutions — like universities and other educational organizations — are still allowed to sponsor “fact-finding” trips for members of Congress and their staffs.

In all, former sponsors that no longer pay for trips spent nearly $15 million on lawmaker-related travel between 2000 and 2007.

Among the groups still funding a large number of member trips is the Aspen Institute, which leads every other organization with nearly $1.1 million in travel expenditures since the lobbying and ethics changes were enacted two years ago. Also at the top of the list — the American Israel Education Foundation with $488,000 spent and the International Management & Development Institute with $100,000.

Murtha could have an entire website devoted to his corruption tactics…
The Washington Post – Tues., May 5, 2009

WASHINGTON – The headquarters of Murtech, in a low-slung, bland building in a Glen Burnie business park, has its blinds drawn tight and few signs of life. On several days of visits, a handful of cars sit in the parking lot, and no trucks arrive at the 10 loading bays at the back of the building. Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech’s most striking feature is its owner — Robert C. Murtha Jr., 49. He is the nephew of Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has significant sway over the Defense Department’s spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

Robert Murtha said he is not at liberty to discuss in detail what his company does, but for four years it has subsisted on defense contracts, according to records and interviews. He said Murtech’s 17 employees “provide necessary logistical support” to Pentagon testing programs that focus on detecting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, “and that’s about as far as I feel comfortable going.” Giving more details could provide important clues to terrorist plotters, he said. Murtha said he does not advertise being the nephew of John Murtha and considers it “unfortunate” that some will unfairly assume Murtech received its federal contracts because of his uncle’s influence at the Pentagon. “If we’re not doing our job well, we wouldn’t be doing our job,” he said. “I’m successful at the work I do because of the skill sets I have. . . . You don’t know how good someone is unless you work with them.” A spokesman at Murtha’s office did not return calls seeking comment. The lawmaker, a former Marine, has said in the past that he is proud of his family’s service to the military and the government.

Over the years, John Murtha has proudly claimed credit for using his Appropriations Committee seat to steer hundreds of millions in Pentagon work to companies in his district, many of them fledgling enterprises run by campaign contributors. His influence also may be seen in the military improvements at the Johnstown airport that bears his name. The little-used commuter airport doubles as a wartime preparedness facility for the Pentagon after $30 million in improvements.

Family ties
Murtha’s power has had beneficial effects within his family. His brother, Robert C. “Kit” Murtha, built a longtime lobbying practice around clients seeking defense funds through the Appropriations Committee and became one of the top members of KSA, a lobbying firm whose contractor clients often received multimillion-dollar earmarks directed through the committee chairman. Robert C. Murtha Jr. of Murtech is Kit Murtha’s son. He also is a former Marine who once served as a presidential security officer and aide to the president for White House functions. He worked for eight years for ACS, a defense and information technology contractor. When Lockheed purchased ACS in 2004, he started several companies, including Murtech, which he registered as a defense contracting firm. Murtech received its contracts primarily from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala., which has been generous to companies in John Murtha’s district and enjoys a close relationship with the congressman through a mutual interest in breast cancer research. The Army command has won at least $200 million a year in federal funding for the cancer research, of which Rep. Murtha is a stalwart supporter. In a program called Missiles to Mammograms the command has collaborated with a contractor in Murtha’s district, Windber Medical Center, in a multimillion-dollar project to explore using missile-tracking technology to detect breast cancer. The command awarded its first storage contract to Murtech without competitive bidding, paying $1.4 million a year. Robert Murtha Jr. says the no-bid arrangement was “the government’s choice” and occurred because the government “got itself in a bind.” A contract with SA Scientific of San Antonio was about to lapse, and the command needed Murtech, then serving as a subcontractor to the Texas company, to store materials for the military’s Critical Reagents Program. The program produces lab materials that can be used in handheld devices and sensors to detect the presence of biological toxins.

“We were uniquely qualified because we had already been doing that work,” Murtha said. In justifying the award, the command said in a spring 2007 notice that “Murtech, Inc. possesses a unique combination of certain essential capabilities” to perform the warehousing. Leo Fratis, the Army contracting officer who handled the matter, said there was “nothing improper” about the contract. He said it was awarded on a no-bid basis only because the Army command “had a lot of things going on at the time.”
Pentagon spokesman Julius Evans said the congressman never contacted the Army command about his nephew’s company and has no say in its procurement decisions. “Congressman Murtha has had no influence over any contract award by our organization,” Evans said. The Pentagon has paid $2 million to Murtech to provide “logistics and engineering” for tests of joint dismountable reconnaissance systems, emergency tools and kits that troops can use to evaluate the environment when a release of biological or chemical agents is suspected. Robert Murtha Jr. explained that the work involves Murtech employees moving equipment to Army test locations.

Murtech also was awarded a large piece of military business in September, as part of a contract for detection equipment awarded to ICX Technologies, a client of the lobbying firm PMA Group. PMA founder Paul Magliocchetti is a close friend of John Murtha’s, and his firm’s clients were highly successful in securing hundreds of millions of dollars in defense earmarks from Murtha. PMA is under federal investigation for its campaign donations to Murtha and other lawmakers. Several members of the congressman’s family have served in the military and worked in the government contracting arena. There’s no evidence that Murtech has received direct congressional earmarks. A congressional rule imposed in 2007 requires that lawmakers certify that the earmarks they add to the federal budget would not benefit them or their family members. The nephew disputes the notion that he has secured Pentagon work because of his family ties. In fact, he said, having a powerful relative can sometimes be a distraction. “I’ve been critiqued all my life, having the last name of Murtha,” he said. “Whenever I walk into a room, I don’t know if you like him or if you don’t like him.”

Are taxpayers getting best value?
But Steve Ellis, a spokesman for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said contracts to Murtech raise questions about whether taxpayers are getting the best value. “Historically we’re always concerned when there is a sole-source or single-bidder contract,” he said. “By definition, the taxpayer isn’t necessarily getting the best deal possible. And certainly when you see the company has close ties to one of the most powerful appropriators in Congress, our antenna really perks up.” During an unannounced visit to Murtech headquarters last week, a reporter asking to talk to the owner was waved away by an employee. “He’s not here. Come back another day,” said the woman who opened Murtech’s security door. “Unfortunately, everybody’s stepped out.” But a few minutes later, Murtha emerged and answered questions about the company.

In an interview, Murtha expressed concern that publicity could be harmful to his business. Tom Mann, a Murtech vice president, also defended the company’s operations, noting that Murtech had won the confidence of the Army by doing a good job. Mann said the $4 million in contracts has not been excessive for the quality of work performed and the demands on the business. “With a warehouse and distribution center, there’s a lot of overhead,” he said. “There’s a huge recurring utility bill.” “Busy, busy. We’re always busy here,” said one employee walking outside the building.

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
 News broke last week that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent-free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa De Lauro, D-Conn. — and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel’s previously undisclosed ethics problems.  One issue is the work Emanuel tossed the way of De Lauro’s husband. But the bigger one goes back to Emanuel’s days on the board of now-bankrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac.  Emanuel is a multimillionaire, but lived for the last five years for free in the tony Capitol Hill townhouse owned by De Lauro and her husband, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. During that time, he also served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — which gave Greenberg huge polling contracts. It paid Greenberg’s firm $239,996 in 2006 and $317,775 in 2008. (Emanuel’s own campaign committee has also paid Greenberg more than $50,000 since 2004.)

To be fair, Greenberg had polling contracts with the DCCC before — but each new election cycle brings its own set of consultants. And Emanuel was certainly generous with his roommate. Emanuel never declared the substantial gift of free rent on any of his financial-disclosure forms. He and De Lauro claim that it was just allowable “hospitality” between colleagues. Hospitality — for five years?  Some experts suggest that it was also taxable income: Over five years, the free rent could easily add up to more than $100,000. Nor is this all that seems to have been missed in the Obama team’s vetting process. Consider: Emanuel served on the Freddie Mac board of directors during the time that the government-backed lender lied about its earnings, a leading contributor to the current economic meltdown. The Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Agency later singled out the Freddie Mac board as contributing to the fraud in 2000 and 2001 for “failing in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.” In other words, board members ignored the red flags waving in their faces.

The SEC later fined Freddie $50 million for its deliberate fraud in 2000, 2001 and 2002.  Meanwhile, Emanuel was paid more than $260,000 for his Freddie “service.” Plus, after he resigned from the board to run for Congress in 2002, the troubled agency’s PAC gave his campaign $25,000 — its largest single gift to a House candidate.  That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? Now Rahm Emanuel is in the White House helping President Obama dig out of the mess that Freddie Mac helped start. The president’s chief of staff isn’t subject to Senate confirmation, but his ethics still matter. Is this the change that we can depend on?