In his bid for a seventh term, 5th District GOP Congressman J.D. Hayworth finds himself in a position many House Republicans would find familiar, as his Democratic opponent, former state Senator Harry Mitchell, and a Washington, D.C.-based public interest research group have repeatedly tried to tie the congressman to the scandal surrounding disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Mr. Hayworth is one of many members of Congress who find themselves accused by Democrats of involvement in an ethics scandal without having been implicated by government authorities. But whether or not Mr. Hayworth has done any wrong, he, like others facing re-election, may be punished by voters who associate all lawmakers with ethics scandals that have roiled Washington this year.
In Mr. Hayworth’s case, Mr. Mitchell has criticized the congressman for taking more than $100,000 from Native American tribes represented by Abramoff, who pled guilty in January to three felony counts after defrauding some of those tribes.
The scandal involving Abramoff has widened, as last week, GOP Ohio Rep. Bob Ney agreed to a plea bargain relating to the case.
According to some public watchdog groups, the succession of scandals making headlines from Washington have lowered the public’s opinion of every member of Congress, not just those who are guilty. “The Abramoff scandal has touched on Congress as a whole,” said Mary Boyle, spokesperson for Common Cause, a campaign finance advocacy group.
“There is a real concern about corruption, and people are equating that to all of Washington,” Ms. Boyle said.
Tribes like Hayworth
Mr. Hayworth, who received more contributions from Native American tribes than any other Republican in the House between 2001 and 2005, does have reason to be at the top of some tribes’ list of politicians to whom they will contribute. A founding member of the Congressional Native American Caucus, Mr. Hayworth continues to work on Native American issues from his perch on the House Ways and Means and House Resources Committees, despite the fact that redistricting in 2002 removed some tribal counties from his district.
The concern Mr. Hayworth shows for tribes, however, has not gone unnoticed. A report released Sept. 21 by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a prominent liberal watchdog group, takes issue with Mr. Hayworth’s connections to Abramoff.
The group’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, thinks the relationship is worth investigating. “The Abramoff connections are troubling,” she said in an interview. “Hayworth may have a good reason to be sweating.” CREW’s report notes that Mr. Hayworth used Abramoff’s luxury skyboxes for five fundraisers at sporting events in Washington between 1999 and 2001, and that he received $2250 in direct contributions from Abramoff.
When Abramoff was indicted, Mr. Hayworth donated those contributions to a charity for victims of Hurricane Katrina. He also repaid two tribes more than $12,000 for use of the luxury boxes.
That’s not good enough, according to Mr. Mitchell’s spokeman Seth Scott. “It’s not the fact that [Hayworth] met Jack Abramoff on a few occasions, it’s a pattern with him.”
Hayworth’s response: The Trouble With Harry
Mr. Hayworth’s campaign spokesperson Joe Eule says, in Mr. Hayworth’s case, the finger-pointing is much ado about nothing. He notes that Abramoff had not contributed to Mr. Hayworth since 1999, and that “nobody has said what it is Congressman Hayworth has done wrong. The fact is there is nothing to these charges.”
Mr. Eule turned the spotlight on Mr. Mitchell’s own ethics record, which he called dubious. “If the Mitchell campaign wants to make this campaign about ethics, we’d be more than happy to do that,” he says.
The Hayworth campaign and the Arizona Republican Party have started trying to turn the tables on Mr. Mitchell’s claim of the ethical high ground. The party set up a Web site called “The Trouble with Harry,” which details Republican attacks on Mr. Mitchell, and the Hayworth campaign has sent direct mail pieces to district residents hammering those points home.
Among them, Republicans claim that, as Mayor of Tempe, Mr. Mitchell took contributions from Charles Keating, convicted of fraud in Savings and Loan scandals in the late 1980s; that Mr. Mitchell moved an opponent’s signs in 2000; and that a proposed swap of Tempe city parking spaces in exchange for tickets to Arizona Cardinals games was struck down by the state’s Attorney General office for violating Arizona’s open meetings laws.
“Being lectured by Harry Mitchell on ethics is like being lectured by Paris Hilton on modesty,” Mr. Eule said.
Mr. Scott fired back at the claims, pointing out that Mr. Mitchell gave Mr. Keating’s donations to charity more than a decade ago, that removal of the signs was legitimate and that the state’s Attorney General found no fault with Mitchell or any members of the Tempe city council.
The Mitchell campaign tries to keep the focus on Hayworth’s relationship with others involved in the ever-widening Abramoff probe. Scott noted Hayworth’s contribution to a legal defense fund set up for DeLay, once an ally of Abramoff’s who resigned from Congress earlier this year after being indicted on money laundering charges in Texas.
And, according to Scott, Hayworth reported a dinner fundraiser paid for by former Washington lobbyist David Safavian that ran to $783. Mr. Safavian, a longtime friend and former co-worker of Abramoff’s, later became chief of staff for the U.S. General Services Administration. He was found guilty in June of making false statements and obstructing an investigation, the first guilty verdict in the case. The dinner was reported as an in-kind donation to Mr. Hayworth’s 1998 re-election campaign. In April of this year, Mr. Hayworth donated an equal amount to a charity set up for an Arizona soldier wounded in Iraq.