Ethics Advocate Blasts Apparent Low Standards of Rep. Jefferson's Supporters
by Chad Groening
December 12, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The head of a Washington, DC-based organization that promotes ethics in public life says the voters of one Louisiana congressional district apparently do not have any problem with the questionable ethics of their own member of Congress, whom they overwhelmingly re-elected in last Saturday's runoff election. The voters of Louisiana's Second Congressional District voted in Representative William Jefferson again, despite the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation found $90,000 of bribe money in his home's freezer -- a discovery that led to the congressman being removed from his seat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Ken Boehm of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) in Washington says citizens in Louisiana's District 2 apparently have a high threshold for scandal. "The fact that voters would re-elect somebody who's not only under FBI investigation but who's been videotaped taking a $100,000 bribe, doesn't speak well for the voters there," he says.
Meanwhile, "Jefferson, despite his being under an investigatory cloud, was endorsed by the mayor, Mayor Nagin," Boehm notes, "and that does tell you an awful lot about how politics is done in New Orleans." He believes the fact that Nagin endorsed Jefferson's candidacy may, as Jefferson's Democrat opponent Karen Carter argued during her campaign, lend credence to the image of New Orleans as corrupt and untrustworthy.
Of course, the suggestions of corruption and scandal that have arisen with regard to Congressman Jefferson are not limited to his district or to any one city, state, or region of America, the NLPC spokesman notes. "Unfortunately, you've had this in other places," he says.
Jefferson's re-election is "also a commentary on the value of incumbency," Boehm asserts. "That can be very hard to overcome," he admits. But since the mission of the NLPC is to "blow the whistle" on government officials and interest groups engaged in questionable activities, he feels the congressman's constituents should be encouraged to hold their representative to a higher ethical standard in the future.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
