What's at center of ethics inquiry into Price?

By Bob Keefe

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON -- A day before voting against financial industry reform legislation, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Roswell held a luncheon where he sought up to $2,500 in campaign donations from political action committees and lobbyists representing banks and other financial companies, records show.

The fund-raiser, held at the Washington insider restaurant Capitol Hill Club, came in a month in which Price received tens of thousands in campaign contributions from banking groups and other political action committees that had a stake in the legislation.

The day-before-the-vote fund-raiser and a flurry of contributions from financial services interests are apparently what's at the center of an ethics review that the House Office of Congressional Ethics recently launched involving Price and other House members.

In a statement earlier this week after the ethics review came to light, Price denied any wrongdoing.

"The initiation of the preliminary review by the OCE to determine whether political contributions may have influenced my vote in favor of a smaller, more responsible, government is without any merit whatsoever," Price said.

He said his vote against the Democratic-led financial reform plan on Dec. 11 was consistent with his voting record ever since he came to Congress.

A spokesman for the Office of Congressional Ethics, a nonpartisan investigative branch of Congress, declined to comment on the investigation, as is its policy.

The ethics office, known as the OCE, regularly opens investigations into lawmakers, but also frequently closes them without taking action -- a practice that has drawn fire from politicians on both sides of the political aisle.

The OCE typically takes up to three months to complete an investigation. If the OCE finds evidence of wrongdoing, it can recommend further investigation by the House Committee on Standards, which has the authority to sanction House members.

All incumbent politicians typically get contributions from political action committees, or PACs, and it's no surprise that Price would get lots of campaign contributions from financial interests since he's a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

But critics of PACs say it's also not surprising that the flurry of financial industry donations to Price and the last-minute fund-raiser apparently raised the suspicions of House ethics investigators.

In the month of December, Price raised about $29,000 from financial PACs and interests groups, according to the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan group that is critical of PACs.

“This is a perfect example of what’s wrong with our broken political system,” said David Donnelly, national campaigns director for the group. “Rep. Price took thousands of dollars of special interest cash and voted their way, leaving voters wondering who he really represents in Washington, D.C.”

Federal Election Commission records show that in the weeks before the financial reform vote, Price received donations -- typically in the $1,000-$2,000 range -- from the American Financial Services PAC, the National Association of Credit Unions PAC and PACs affiliated with the banks and accounting firms such as Bank of America, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deloitte & Touche, KPMG and others.

Price was far from the only lawmaker who got a flood of campaign contributions from financial industry interests in the lead-up to the vote on financial industry reform, however.

What Price and the seven other members of Congress now under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics have in common is they all belong either to the House Financial Services Committee or other committees that were involved with drafting banking regulations.

All of them -- five Republicans and three Democrats -- also apparently held fund-raisers seeking contributions from financial industry interests just days before the vote.

The OCE is the same body that launched an investigation into Republican U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal that sped up Deal's decision to retire and focus on his race for the governor's office.

It also has investigated other members of Georgia's delegation to Congress -- some of whom defended Price on Thursday.

Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Lithonia, who faced an OCE inquiry over a trip he took to Norway, said the OCE can launch an investigation into a ethics complaint without ever saying where the complaint originated.

Once under investigation, Johnson said, a House member has to devote hours of time, hire attorneys and can be left with a political strike against them regardless of the outcome of an inquiry.

"I have no problem with a robust ethics apparatus to police the activities of the members of Congress," said Johnson, adding that the OCE dropped its investigation of him shortly after it started, "but members deserve the constitutional protections of anybody who is accused of an offense will have."