The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers -- more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn't asked the committee to stand down.
Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe.
The ethics committee declined to respond to questions about the racial disparity, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are wary of talking about it on the record. But privately, some black members are outraged -- and see in the numbers a worrisome trend in the actions of ethics watchdogs on and off Capitol Hill.
There really isn't much you can say about this story because it's almost entirely anonymously sourced. I can't really speak too much about the ethics of Congress, but the ethics of running a piece like this, with an implicit claim of racism but no actual on the record accusers, rubs me wrong.
Maybe there is some racism here, but I really have no idea, in part because I can't evaluate the credibility of the accusers. I think these sorts of stories run because "racial disparity" generates a lot of hits, and lots of links (yep, I'm guilty) and a lot of heat. The actual veracity of the claim is pretty irrellevant.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Politico is the Fox news of the web. They drop their unsourced bombs, move on and then stare innocently and say, "Who Me?" when someone dares to question their "news" stories.
I think the takedown of Fox News by Jon Stewart was pretty good, illustrating how Fox News works. What they do is separate their news and opinion time slots and try to pretend they are separate parts. However, the opinion side makes outrageous comments and then the news side reports that "some people claim that Obama is doing X" Then they expect us to believe that it's just the news, we're just reporting what people are saying.
Politico is crummy: they're lazy, they regurgitate talking points and it seems like the main purpose of the entire site is to get links from Drudge.
That being said, there's some truth in this. The problem is not with the CBC per se, but the fact that majority-minority districts experience far lower-than-average turnover. Just like Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham, very long periods in office increase the odds of corruption and ethical failures. The set-aside districts benefit both incumbent Democrats and neighboring-district Republicans, so that won't be changed any time soon.
Really, the only hope is that more than one political party will do more to shed its Jim Crow wing and make itself appealing to African-Americans in a way that involves more than tossing up some pictures of Jackie Robinson on its website. Think about it: if you were a 19-year-old freshman standing at the schoolhouse door with George Wallace, you're a 65-year-old white guy now, which puts you smack in the middle of the "keep government out of my Medicare"/racist email forwarding/bone-in-nose-sign waving Tea Party demographic.
There are huge caveats inherent in that statement (not nearly all Republicans, or seniors, or southerners are racist) but I think you'll see big, big changes once that generation dies out over the next couple of decades. By 2030, a Republican candidate in Harlem may break the 25% mark. Crazy, I know.
I'll admit I haven't been following this for awhile - but this line from the article really jumped out at me.
"Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are still fuming over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to oust then-Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from the House Ways and Means Committee in 2006..."
For real? They're saying the CBC is mad that, when a guy who's under investigation for bribery is found with 90 grand in his freezer, he loses his committee post? And that three years later, even after he was actually convicted of bribery, they're still mad over it? Man, either the CBC really is filled with a bunch of clowns, or Politico's editorial department is. (Not that the two are mutually exclusive).
That line bothered me as well. How do you defend someone who not only was found with cash in his freezer but was also convicted.
Unfortunately, the CBC is filled with a significant number of clowns.
Per Tdawg11870, safe seats tend to be corrupt seats.
I'm surprised Charles Rangel hasn't been mentioned yet. He's one of the most powerful men in Washington, a Democratic committee chairman, and looks like he might be a crook. Rangel has been investigated for months, and if he wasn't so powerful, would have already resigned his chairmanship, if not his seat in Congress.
I'm only speculating on a hypothesis, but it seems possible the Rangel scandal could take down some other Reps. And that this gossip/leak is just somebody trying to throw sand on the fire.
Rangel's increasingly unbelievable dodges to each new NYT story are disgusting to listen to, because you know he's getting away with epic-level cavalier incompetence (at absolute best) that would earn anyone here massive fines and possible jailtime. There's no contrition, no remorse, no accountability, no chance of being primaried out, and no stomach for reprimand on Pelosi's part unless and until a damned fridgeworth of cash gets found.
Rangel is exactly like Rostenkowski and DeLay and needs to get his corrupt butt tossed.
Like TNC, I won't call racism based on an article devoid of facts and attributable sources. But out of 435 members of the House of Representatives there there are 7 full-scale investigations and all are being conducted on members of the Congressional Black Caucus? Really???
Now I'm stating explicitly that I do NOT believe that Nancy Pelosi et al in the House of Reps are racist. But it's hard to ignore the fact that Blacks and other Minorities still, after all of the progress that has been made, pay a much higher price for living than Whites do so I'll just have to file this story along with:
Blacks being more likely to be sent to prison for a drug related offense than a White person despite similar levels of drug usage. (http://www.rawstory.com/news/afp/US_blacks_jailed_at_higher_rate_for_05062008.html)
Blacks being more likely to be stopped and searched during traffic stops (http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/219145/race_disparity_seen_during_traffic_stops/)
Blacks and Hispanics consistently paying higher rates for mortgages than Whites (http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/31/news/mortgage_study/index.htm)
...
That being said, I'm not surprised that institutional racism still exists will just try to "keep on, keepin' on!"
One can speak only to the article and not to the alleged corruption, because not only is it anonymously sourced, as TNC points out, but there is little detail to the allegations. It's lazy to say "some black members" of Congress are outraged, or "A number of CBC members opposed the resolution establishing the OCE [Office of Congressional Ethics]". Who? How many? Did any other members of congress, black or white, D or R, oppose the resolution? The article doesn't say. On the other hand, it's really weak for a black lawmaker to deflect scrutiny by pointing a finger at a fellow Democrat, Jane Harman.
just cause you're paranoid DON'T mean that they're not out to get you.
period.
I've been waiting for forever and a day for them to investigate Senator Dianne Feinstein with the money her husband has gotten through the government.
I don't assume the Politico story is true.
Having watched legislative ethics panels for a while, I'm surprised that they have any active cases at all. The members love to toss complaints out as having too little proof, or to handle those with good proof as requiring only very quick and very collegial reminders that never ever go public.
Any ongoing investigation suggests that someone filed a small mountain of documents and listed a small army of witnesses. It suggests a staff of investigators and lawyers assembling all manner of evidence that requires months of staff work to sort through. It suggests a kind of complaint that is hardly ever filed, created by a kind of effort hardly ever made. It suggests very deep pockets and very committed investors.
So if the story is sound, it's worth asking who's building that kind of complaint.