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By
Thomas Peele
Contra Costa
Times
January 15, 2006
Rep.
Richard Pombo's top aide might have violated congressional
ethics rules by not correctly reporting all of his outside
political work and making too much money from California
campaigns and consultants, the aide said Friday.
Steven Ding regularly worked for candidates and organizations
with close ties to Pombo, a Tracy Republican who is chairman
of the House Resources Committee.
Ding's admission, in response to a Times investigation of his
activities, raises questions about his outside work and a
special arrangement under which Pombo has allowed him to spend
more than $87,000 in taxpayer money on travel, meals and
lodging during the past three years.
Despite being chief of staff to the Washington-based Resources
Committee, and being paid more than $150,000 a year from the
committee's budget, Ding works primarily from California and
commutes to Capitol Hill at taxpayers' expense when the
committee is in session.
Congressional observers called the situation unusual, a waste
of public money and a questionable interpretation of house
rules. Pombo and Ding insist the travel expenses, which
include lodging and meals in Washington, are legitimate.
House rules on travel and spending prohibit using a member's
district budget for committee expenses. They also state that
"living expenses and commuting expenses are not
reimbursable when they are incurred at the staff member's duty
station."
In addition to his committee post, Ding is also listed in
records as chief of the congressman's personal staff, a
position for which Pombo pays him $100 a month from his
district office budget. The listing allows Ding to bill
taxpayers for his frequent travel between Washington and
California.
Even though he describes Ding as his chief of staff who
controls all aspects of both his personal and committee
operations, Pombo pays another staff member more than $120,000
a year from his district budget as deputy chief of staff. The
two jobs don't overlap, Pombo said.
While in California, Ding does consulting for Republican
candidates and consultants with close ties to Pombo, from the
state GOP to Pombo's longtime political adviser, whom the
congressman has paid more than $1.45 million in fees and
expenses since 1992.
As a committee chief of staff, Ding has to report his outside
income on annual financial disclosure statements and adhere to
rules that limit how much top congressional employees can make
from outside work.
Those limits are in place to ensure that top staff members
with ample access to power spend a majority of their time
working for taxpayers.
Federal and state documents show that at least four times
since 2000, Ding either underreported his outside income or
exceeded the limits. The discrepancies were found when the
Times compared Ding's disclosure statements to the campaign
finance reports filed by candidates who had paid him
consulting fees.
Friday, Ding said the Times findings were accurate and that he
had made mistakes. He said he would file amended disclosures
with the House as soon as possible.
Describing himself as "not a 9-to-5" guy, he said he
works 80 to 90 hours a week for both the Resources Committee
and Pombo's district operations.
"The committee gets its money worth. I don't enjoy
getting on a plane every week," he said.
Any errors on his disclosure statements and instances where he
exceeded income limits were inadvertent and can probably be
blamed on his hectic pace and schedule, he said. The
newspaper's findings show:
• In 2000, Ding failed
to report $1,000 he received from a state Senate campaign.
• In 2002, he exceeded
the outside income limit by $5,000.
• In 2003, he
underreported his outside income by nearly $15,000, listing
what he said was a net amount after business expenses, rather
than a gross figure. The gross figure - $35,000 - exceeded the
limit for the year by nearly $12,000.
Ding insisted Friday that he believed the disclosures were
accurate when he filed them. And he said the House Ethics
Committee, which is charged with reviewing the documents,
never notified him of any problems.
A spokesman for Ethics Committee Chairman Rep. Doc Hastings,
R-Washington, did not return several telephone calls last
week.
Pombo did not return a message left with the Resources
Committee spokesman Friday about Ding's admission that he
filed inaccurate economic interest forms.
In an e-mail, Pombo spokesman Brian Kennedy said Pombo
remained confident in Ding's integrity and that taxpayers were
well served by his work.
Exceeding the income limit or failing to report income to
Congress can result in fines of $10,000, or the amount of
income underreported or in excess of the limit.
Ding said he could "very well be in violation" of
ethics rules and he was "concerned with making this
situation right. I am concerned with not embarrassing myself
or my boss."
In filling out his disclosure form for 2003, Ding reported
$20,046 in outside income, a figure that he said was the net
amount for work after deducting business expenses. He grouped
two sources of income together to reach that net figure.
On the four other years of his disclosures, he listed each
source of income separately by year and gross amount.
"The declaration of net income for a year that the gross
of the fees received far exceed the income limit is
troubling," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel of
the Federal Election Commission and the executive director of
the Center for Responsive politics, a nonpartisan watchdog
group.
The congressional rules governing disclosure state that they
are in place "to inform the public about the financial
interests of government officials in order to increase public
confidence in the integrity of government and to deter
potential conflicts of interest."
Documents show that Ding received $114,240 in outside income
between 2000 and 2004, the last year for which records are
available. (Disclosures for 2005 are due in May).
All the sources of that income are political campaigns and
consultants with ties to Pombo.
Ding said Friday he would not have been able to continue that
work after 2003 if he had moved to Washington when Pombo
appointed him Resources Committee chief of staff.
Since then, records show he spent more than $87,000 from
Pombo's district budget on travel, lodging and meals from
January 2003 to July 2005. During that same period, he
received more than $57,000 in consulting fees, according to
documents.
Also during that time, Ding received nearly all his
congressional salary - $417,933 - from the budget of the
Washington-based Resources Committee.
Although Pombo insisted that Ding serves as both his personal
and committee chiefs of staff, Noble and other Congressional
watchdogs said the pay records make it clear that Ding works
for the committee, a Washington-based job.
The travel arrangement "sounds absurd," said Fred
Wertheimer, the former director of Common Cause who now heads
the group Democracy 21.
"Whether this is in compliance with House ethics rules or
not, this is not the way a chief of staff of a congressional
committee should be functioning," he said.
Robert Williams, project Director of the Center for Public
Integrity, said, "The guy is on the staff of the
committee. The committee is here in Washington, and that's
where he should be working. You're supposed to be prudent with
citizens' money."
On Wednesday, Pombo defended the arrangement: "I want my
chief of staff in California."
The public is better served when top staff members "spend
as much time as they can outside the Beltway," he said.
Congressional staff members who split their time between
committee and district duties are not uncommon. But,
Wertheimer said, he had never heard of a committee chief of
staff not based in Washington.
Ding worked on Pombo's successful 1992 congressional campaign
and then joined his staff. When Pombo became resources
chairman in January 2003, he named Ding the committee's chief
of staff, its highest officer, but agreed to let him continue
to stay in Stockton, where he lives. Ding continued his
political consulting even while commuting often to Washington.
In addition, IRS documents show Ding is the director of a
Sacramento-based federal political action committee, WestPac,
that supports conservative congressional candidates and causes
in Western states.Noble said Ding's outside work was
troubling, in part, because many of Ding's payments come from
people who receive political work from Pombo. In another
instance, payments came from a candidate to whom Pombo gave
money. That could lead to the impression that Ding is being
compensated for steering work or money to them, rather than
providing consulting services, Noble said.
In 2000, 2002 and 2003, Ding received fees from a state
legislative candidate who had earlier received contributions
from a state political action committee that Pombo controlled.
According to state documents, Ding was in charge of that
political action committee's expenditures, and it raised money
from donors who also routinely gave to Pombo's federal
re-election account.
Pombo gave up control of the committee -- named Hat PAC, an
apparent reference to his fondness for cowboy hats -- after a
campaign finance reform law prohibited members of Congress
from being involved in state political action committees.
"You have to worry that allowing such income, especially
when it is so closely associated with Pombo politically, is a
reward," Noble said.
Pombo said last week that Ding's outside work had nothing to
do with his decision to allow Ding to base his committee
duties in California. "I don't see how they are
connected," he said.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, a member of the House
Administration Committee, briefly questioned Pombo last year
about Ding's travel during a hearing. Because that hearing
involved other matters, the committee's chairman, Ohio
Republican Bob Ney, told Pombo he didn't have to answer
Lofgren's questions.
Told how much Ding had spent on travel since becoming
resources chief of staff, Lofgren said last week, "I
think the committee staff really doesn't have a work station
in the district. The committee staff works for the committee,
not the chairman. I think that violates the rules."
Another congressional watcher, the director of Citizens for
Ethics and Responsibilities in Washington, faulted both
political parties with creating a lax atmosphere in Congress
about ethics rules compliance.
"The House Ethics Committee doesn't look at
anything," said Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for
Ethics and Responsibilities in Washington.
"These are serious issues, but no one looks at them. No
one wants the ethics rules enforced. They deliberately
undermine their own rules. Both parties are to blame,"
she said.
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