Most liberals would agree that members of Congress should be held to a high standard of openness and accountability when it comes to campaign finances, private gifts and influence-buying, especially when big-money players like a billionaire hedge fund manager are involved.
Where, then, is the uproar over Rep. Chellie Pingree?
After a Watchdog.org investigation in 2010 found that Pingree (D-Maine) had flown on her then-fiancé Donald Sussman’s private jet in violation of federal campaign law, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) finally moved to hold Pingree accountable, fining her $9,750 for two flights and ordering her to repay $13,000.
Few in Congress have been as outspoken as Pingree about transparency and campaign finance reform. Last year, she backed a campaign finance reform bill that would try to create “a system of grassroots financing of campaigns that discourages special interests in favor of the kind of small donations average people can afford.”
Before she was elected to Congress, Pingree spent several years at the helm of Common Cause, a nonprofit lobbying group dedicated to “reinventing an open, honest and accountable government that serves the public interest, and empowering ordinary people to make their voices heard in the political process.”
For Pingree, however, it appears that “ordinary people” means billionaire hedge fund managers, and an “honest government” means one where elected officials quietly accept in-kind corporate donations like flights in private jets.
It would be hard to script her hypocrisy more explicitly. “Most Americans never have and never will fly on a chartered jet, much less a fancy corporate jet complete with wet bar and leather couches,” Pingree said while testifying before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution in 2006, prior to her election to Congress. “So when members of Congress constantly fly around on corporate jets and pay only the cost of a commercial ticket, it contributes to the corrosive public perception that members of Congress are more like the fat cats of Wall Street than they are like the rest of us.”
Pingree and Sussman are now married, which is why the House Ethics Committee initially OKed her plane travel. But, as the FEC found, she still violated campaign laws, and there’s a huge disconnect between Pingree’s rhetoric and her actions. If there is a place where openness and accountability is needed, it is with power couples like Pingree and Sussman.
The Sunlight Foundation summarizes how their relationship has turned into influence-buying: “Sussman gives Pingree access to the kind of cash that helps politicians win friends and expand influence, and Pingree gives her husband access to Congress.”
An extensive investigation in 2012 by the Sunlight Foundation into Sussman’s political contributions and business dealings found that his financial clout in the Democratic Party extends across Maine — where he has contributed more than $4.5 million since 2002 — and beyond to New England and all the way to the halls of Congress.
In 2009, for example, he struck up a relationship with Rep. Barney Frank while Frank chaired the House Financial Services Committee — the locus of policymaking as part of the Dodd-Frank Act charged with creating regulations for the hedge fund industry. After the act was passed, Frank and his partner flew to the Virgin Islands for a vacation with Sussman and Pingree in Sussman’s private jet.
The biggest benefactor of Sussman’s political spending is Pingree herself, whose largest single source of campaign cash as of 2012 was more than $200,000 in donations from Sussman’s employees. And that’s not to mention the influx of donations from the securities and investment banking sector that suddenly started flowing in when Pingree ran for Congress.
Common Cause has not yet commented on Pingree’s violations, and its silence about its former leader is telling. For a group that claims it is committed to transparency, you’d think it would be more forthcoming about hypocritical members of Congress, especially one they know so well. The people deserve to know, after all.
Erik Telford is president of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
