A seven-year-old law created after congressional Republicans pressured lobbying firms to hire their former staffers could be invoked against Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia.
Earlier this year, when then-Virginia state senator Phillip Puckett was considering resigning so his daughter could become a state judge without a conflict of interest, Warner intervened in an effort to convince him to stay.
In an hour-long conversation, Warner described other job opportunities he could help the state senator’s daughter get instead of the state judgeship, Puckett’s son told investigators.
Warner wanted Puckett to remain in office so Democrats could maintain state senate control. Doing so was essential to achieving Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s top legislative priority — Medicaid expansion in Virginia under the Obamacare program.
But a law passed in the wake of the K Street Project scandal prevents members of Congress from helping people secure private-sector jobs for partisan reasons.
Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas, was behind the K Street Project, which sought to pressure lobbying firms to hire former GOP Hill staffers and other Republican allies.
Among the early acts of the Democratic congressional majority elected in 2006 was passage of the House Leadership and Open Government Act in 2007.
The law prohibits congressmen from “threatening or offering to take official action, or from influencing or threatening or offering to influence an official act of another, in an attempt to influence, solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation, an employment practice or decision of a private entity,” according to a summary of the statute by the Congressional Research Service.
“I think the language is fairly clear,” said William Schroeder, a professor of criminal law at Southern Illinois University. “It may well form the basis of an indictment, it may well warrant an indictment, [but] it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a conviction.”
Days before the state senator resigned, Warner called Puckett’s son Joseph to discuss a potential federal judgeship for Puckett’s daughter, according to Joseph’s lawyer.
Warner also mentioned a job at CGI, the Canadian contractor that received $93 million from the Obama administration to create the disastrous healthcare.gov website.
The Canadian contractor’s federal division depends upon Washington for much of its income, which makes it especially vulnerable to government pressures.
“There are numerous ways in which a senator could cause a headache for CGI. Almost any involvement, in particular a senator from the majority party, just to call up and say, ‘do you have an opening for this person who’s really good?’, no matter if any other words are said, they’re going to get the message that we should find an opening,” Schroeder said.
Warner’s spokesman said he was only “brainstorming” and did not promise a job, nor did he have the ability to appoint judges single-handedly.
Ironically, investigators turned up evidence of the conversation during an inquiry that set out to look for Republican misconduct over Puckett’s resignation.
The U.S. Department of Justice began an investigation because Puckett planned to step down while he had been speaking to state Republicans about a potential job for himself as the leader of a state agency, an appointment which they controlled.
He also wanted to step down because Virginia nepotism rules prevented his daughter from becoming a low-level state judge while he was a state senator.
She was up for confirmation after having served in the role in an acting capacity. Conflict of interest rules wouldn’t apply if it was a federal judgeship of the sort discussed with Warner — though, given that she was only a few years out of law school, the daughter’s qualifications for a lifetime judicial post would likely be questioned.
Another law, 18 US Code Section 600, says that “whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
Both laws refer to the actions of federal elected officials such as Warner, but likely not to state legislators.
