Former speaker gets pricey perks
JAKE SHERMAN & JOHN BRESNAHAN
12/21/09 3:53 AM EST
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The federal government pays $6,300 per month to rent an office for
Hastert and his staff in Yorkville, Ill.
U.S. taxpayers are spending more than $40,000 per month on office
space, staff, cell phones and a leased SUV for former House Speaker
Dennis Hastert, even as he works as a lobbyist for private
corporations and foreign governments.
The payments are perfectly legal under a federal law that provides
five years of benefits for former speakers – but only if Hastert never
makes use of his government-funded perks in the course of his lobbying
work. Ethics experts say that sort of separation is hard to maintain.
Hastert `has to be meticulous in his schedule to make sure there is no
bleed from his publicly subsidized office into his private practice,’
said Kenneth Gross, a former Federal Election Commission general
counsel and congressional ethics authority. Steve Ellis, vice
president of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, called the
arrangement `really concerning.’
`It is specifically prohibited – federal dollars can’t be spent on
lobbying operations,’ Ellis said. `We are paying for his staff [and]
for a car, and we need to be very sure that he isn’t spending a dime
of that money on lobbying operations. `That all needs to be above
board, in the clear and transparent. And it’s not.’
Hastert declined to discuss the situation with POLITICO.
But his spokesman, Brad Hahn, said the former 11-term congressman is
in full compliance with rules covering how the federal funds are
spent. Hahn said Hastert’s lobbying work `is completely separate [from
the office of the former speaker], and he keeps them completely
separate.’
The federal government pays $6,300 per month to rent an office for
Hastert and his staff in Yorkville, Ill. Hahn conceded that Hastert
has no other office set aside for lobbying work in Illinois but said
that the former speaker travels to Washington frequently for work.
In addition to the office, the government pays the salaries of three
of Hastert’s assistants in his Illinois office – each more than
$100,000 in 2008. Bryan Hardin, Hastert’s administrative assistant
(the title often used by a chief of staff in a congressional office)
earned $138,000.
`The office of the former speaker has specific functions that are tied
to Denny being the former speaker, but he does not receive any
compensation and is not an employee,’ Hahn said. `There are three
staffers that carry out the functions – archiving, correspondence,
speaking engagements – and working with the Hastert Center’ at Wheaton
College.
House disbursement records show that the office is spending an
additional $2,000 per month in taxpayer money on a consulting firm,
Burnham Strategies, that is run by several of Hastert’s former
staffers, including Hahn. Altogether, the firm was paid $30,000
through Sept. 30 of this year, records show.
Taxpayers also make the lease payments on a 2008 GMC Yukon and pay for
a satellite TV subscription, cell phones, laptops and other expenses.
Since Hastert opened the Illinois office in early 2008, records show,
the government has paid for five computer monitors at a total cost of
$1,125, spent almost $1,300 for desks and shelled out an additional
$4,460 for Hewlett-Packard laptops. Other expenditures include $745
for a printer and about $620 to transport a clock.
Hastert, who served in the House for almost 21 years, signed on with
Dickstein Shapiro in 2008. He is now a registered foreign agent,
representing in Washington the interests of the governments of Turkey
and Luxembourg. He also lobbies on behalf of three U.S. corporations.
Democrats enacted new lobbying restrictions in 2007 in a bid to curb
the influence of registered lobbyists after Hastert’s Republican
colleagues were entangled in a slew of ethical and legal scandals.
These restrictions curbed gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers and
lawmaker travel paid for by federally registered lobbyists, and they
instituted a period during which former members could not lobby
Congress. But those measures do not prohibit what Hastert is doing
now.
Under a federal statute enacted in 1974, former House speakers are
entitled to an allowance to set up and run an office, a payment that
includes salaries for several aides. In 1995, then newly empowered
Republicans – who had seized control of the House for the first time
in four decades – put a five-year deadline on this allowance, a move
aimed at former Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.), who had lost his
reelection bid the previous November.
The formula for calculating the allowance given to former speakers is
based on that used by current lawmakers. Former speakers are
prohibited from taking the funds only if they take some other
`appointive or elected office or position’ in the federal or D.C.
government, according to a 2007 Congressional Research Service report.
Hahn said Hastert is authorized to spend as much as $840,000 annually
to run his office but has not used all the money made available to him
by Congress. `He’s worked on a nonpaid basis, but as a former speaker,
[Hastert] helped out with the Chicago Olympic bid, Advance Illinois
[an education program] and Illinois Works,’ a jobs program, Hahn
added. `These are nonlobbying and nonpaid. These are duties he was
asked to help [on as] official causes – because he was a former
speaker and to add his expertise.’
Hastert is not the first former speaker to become a lobbyist. Foley
worked as a lobbyist for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld after serving
as U.S. ambassador to Japan, representing clients such as AT&T, Walt
Disney Co., CSX Corp. and the State University of New York. Jim
Wright, a Texas Democrat who was speaker from 1987 to 1989, was a
consultant for Arch Petroleum Co., although it is unclear if he was
ever a registered lobbyist, said the Office of the Historian of the
House. Other former speakers, including Georgia Republican Newt
Gingrich, never registered as lobbyists.
When he retired from Congress two years ago, Hastert told an Illinois
newspaper he would go back home and unwind from nearly three decades
in public office. Hastert predicted, `I don’t really see myself as a
lobbyist and would probably not do that at all.’