Ah, yes. Good old Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

The real surprise in Cunningham’s case is not that his sins were so egregious; rather, it’s that they were so typical. His case was of the entrenched culture of corruption that so thoroughly permeated the old-school, pre-11/07 Congress.

As this Wikipedia article notes, “Cunningham resigned from the House on November 28, 2005 after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and underreporting his income for 2004. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. On March 3, 2006, he received a sentence of eight years and four months in prison and an order to pay $1.8 million in restitution.”

The interesting angle here isn’t just that Cunningham accepted bribes for years, or even that he finally got caught with his hands in the cookie jar; it’s who it was that he was actually accepting the bribes from. The defense contracting firm at the center of the scandal was MZM Inc., run by a man named Mitchell Wade. And Wade was a former employee of, and frequent associate of, another man named Brent Wilkes.

As Josh Marshall pointed out at the time in this TPM article, Wilkes “was the one who, in addition to this defense contracting company, ADCS, Inc., had also opened up Group W Advisors, his own DC lobby shop and Group W Transportion, a private air carrier that only owned 1/16 of a Lear Jet and had as its primary line of work giving freebie flights around the country to members of Congress like Tom DeLay, Roy Blunt, but mostly our old pal Duke Cunningham, who represents the district where ADCS is located.”

How does Mitchell Wade and MZM fit into this picture? Well, Wade was the California defense contractor who took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of Cunningham’s Del Mar residence in 2003, provided a yacht for his use in the nation’s capital, and forced his employees to make political contributions that benefited Cunningham and other members of Congress.

And benefit they did. Some of the other recipients of MZM’s substantial largesse at the time (which, of course, involved purely altruistic contributions that did not in any way include any possible quid pro quo arrangements, ahem) were Randy Forbes (R-VA), Virgil Goode (R-VA), Katherine Harris (R-FL), Hunter Duncan (R-CA), and Rick Renzi (R-AZ).

And while I’m sure this will not come as a huge surprise to many of you, convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) were also part of that same ever-widening circle of corruption. Randy Cunningham was only one small player in a large and very crooked game.

When his illegal relationships with Wade and Wilkes first came to light in the summer of 2005, Cunningham famously declared, “If I’ve done anything wrong, come and get me.” Well, they did. And now he’s paying the price for his sins—with the notable exception, that is, of the substantial annual pension that you and I are obligated to pay with our tax dollars for the rest of his life, thanks to loopholes in the laws governing disgraced legislators.

Those are the loopholes that Senator Kerry’s amendment is meant to close. Those are the sins that his efforts are meant to punish. That is the entrenched culture of corruption in Washington that he is determined to dismantle and destroy. And it is totally in character for him to do so.

Kerry was a hard-hitting prosecutor in Boston before he became a legislator in Washington. He kept on prosecuting the guilty when he tracked down and exposed the international ring of terrorists, narco-traffickers, and covert operatives that hid behind the complex workings of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). And he is still working to take down those who are guilty of illegal corruption and coercion today.

I don’t know about you, but it makes me angry to know that convicted criminal Randy Cunningham will keep on receiving an annual pension that is significantly greater than the average salary of a hard-working American citizen today. It rankles me that there is nothing under the law that can be done to strip Cunningham of that pension, one that he so richly does not deserve.

But it is good to know that Senator Kerry and his colleagues are taking steps to strip that layer of legal protection away from other such lawbreakers in the future. Here’s hoping that we’ll see many more such initiatives in the coming years, now that the previous regime is no longer in charge of the legislative branch.

Otter, thanks for the background on Cunningham. Although he can’t lose his pension, at least this bill having been given the nickname of the “Duke Cunningham” bill, will assure that his legacy will be forever defined by the sleazy actions he took.

It is also great to see that Senator Kerry is again leading on something that fights corruption in our government. In addition to the incredible record you list, an idealistic Kerry/Wellstone effort to pass real genuine campaign finance reform also fights corruption. The amount of money needed to run for office moves some people to accept money in exchange for votes or other favors.

The last election found that Iraq and corruption were the two main issues. Kerry put the Democrats in a better position on that because he forced the Senate to discuss it with his amendment. On corruption, he is as clean as you can get and his record on fighting it is better than anyone’s. (Would you like to be McCain with Kerry pointing out that when McCain was caught up as one of the Keating 5, Kerry was busting BCCI?)

I wondered about that too Todd.  I think that it might be for the same reasons.  Maybe they can’t make the law that will affect currently sitting members of Congress. I don’t know.

I am glad that this passed.  It’s good legislation and a good move to end a bad practice.  There is no way that future Randy “Duke” Cunninghams should be on the public pension payroll after betraying the public trust.

I’d wondered who the 13 non-voting senators were on this bill, so looked it up on Roll Call. A non-vote can mean many things, most of them benign or justifiable—sick, out of town, emergency, etc—especially in a situation like this where amendment was expected to pass. Nevertheless, the list is interesting:

Not Voting - 13
Allard (R-CO)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coleman (R-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Domenici (R-NM)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)

Thank you, Sen. Kerry, for introducing this bill; I’m delighted it passed!

Thank you ALSO for standing firm this week on two other amendments to the ethic reform: (a) FOR tougher “earmark” regulations and (b) For tougher rules against nepotism. I applaud your principled, courageous stand on all these issues. This is real leadership, and I thank you for it.

PS Of the non-voting senators I’ve listed above, Sen. Johnson was obviously absent due to serious illness. (Please get well soon!)

I’m proud to see such an amendment pass. It further gives evidence that the people of the United States are growing ever agitated with corrupt politicians.

I’ve made mention to several friends that a policy for compensation for political service, that of congressmen, and all political leaders, should be confined to supporting the necessities of life, with small contribution to a fund for vacations—we can’t expect them to work 365/yr. And, further, that all other compensation should not be allowed; that is to say gifts of monetary value, acquisition of assets, etc., should not be allowed.

Although it may seem critical of a pursuit of wealth in their endeavors, it nonetheless could accomplish the goal for allowing only those that have the purist of interest in the nation, the people, and most importantly, the ideals of democracy, at heart.

It is possible that this recently passed policy could usher in a new age of politicians—ones who do have a genuine, non-biased concern for the ideals of democracy and our nation, and it’s peoples.