U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-1st, joined his fellow Democrats in the House on Wednesday, in a mostly party-line vote, to table and effectively kill a resolution introduced on Monday by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., calling for the House Ethics Committee to investigate the relationship between earmarks and campaign contributions.

Flake introduced that resolution in the wake of recent media coverage of The PMA Group, the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm reportedly under investigation by the FBI. In Fiscal Year 2008 Visclosky secured 16 federal earmarks totaling $23,800,000 for PMA clients. Eight of those PMA clients, the recipients of nine separate earmarks totaling $12.6 million in Fiscal Year 2008, have contributed a total of $343,599 to Visclosky’s campaign committee over the last five election cycles.

Visclosky spokesman Jacob Ritvo told the Chesterton Tribune today that a House Ethics Committee investigation would be redundant. “Media reports suggest that a federal investigation of PMA is underway,” he said. “Congress does not need to duplicate that investigation.”

Flake disagreed in a statement released after the vote. “Whether or not Congress wants to admit it, our own ethics guidelines on earkmarks and campaign contributions are weak,” he said. “When members of Congress can give no-bid contracts to campaign donors, we’ve got a problem.”

Flake spokesman Matthew Specht noted today that the problem is systemic and goes beyond any investigation of PMA. “Frankly, The PMA Group is not the only lobbing firm that employs this practice,” he said.

The Associated Press was reporting today that two sources, including a “lawyer familiar” with the FBI raid of PMA’s Arlington, Va., offices in November, have indicated that the Justice Department’s Fraud Section “is overseeing an investigation into whether PMA reimbursed some employees for campaign contributions to members of Congress who requested the projects.”

In an op-ed piece published on Monday in the New York Times, Flake argued that current House Ethics Committee guidelines permit members to accept contributions from firms for which they secure earmarks because those contributions are not considered “a financial interest.” Flake called that guideline a “pay-to-play loophole” and suggested that it be closed.

“If we think we can rely on Ethics Committee guidelines written by our colleagues to shield us from corruption investigation, we are drinking our own bathwater,” Flake wrote in the piece. “We have little choice but to de-couple earmarks from campaign contributions. This can be most easily done by classifying that campaign contributions do in fact constitute a ‘financial interest.’”

Data compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Center for Responsive Politics show that in Fiscal Year 2008 Visclosky secured nine earmarks for eight PMA clients who have made substantial contributions to his campaign committee:

*An earmark of $2 million for 21st Century Systems, which contributed a total of $53,650 to Visclosky’s campaign committee over two election cycles.

*An earmark of $2 million for Applied Global Technologies, which contributed $18,000 to his campaign in the 2005-06 cycle.

*An earmark of $1.6 million for Cryptek Secure Communications, which contributed $18,000 to Visclosky’s campaign in the 2005-06 cycle.

*An earmark of $800,000 for General Atomics, which contributed a total of $63,649 to his campaign over five election cycles.

*An earmark of $1.2 million for Parametric Technology Corpora-tion, which contributed a total of $45,000 to Visclosky’s campaign over two cycles.

*An earmark of $1.6 million for Planning Systems Inc., which contributed a total of $32,900 to his campaign over two cycles.

*Two earmarks totaling $1.4 million for ProLogic Inc, which contributed a total of $74,000 to Visclosky’s campaign over three cycles.

*And an earmark of $2 million for Sierra Nevada Corporation, which contributed a total of $44,700 to his campaign over three cycles.

Last week Visclosky announced that he will return $18,000 in campaign contributions made by PMA associates after media reports suggested that those associates in fact had no meaningful connection to PMA.

Posted 2/26/2009