January 8, 2008
Senator Faces Allegations of Corruption
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan watchdog organization, announced today that it has asked the Department of Justice and the Senate to look into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) violated federal bribery law when she earmarked $2 million for a reading program for D.C. public schools after receiving tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the executives of the company that designed the program. According to a release, Landrieu directed the earmark to Voyager Expanded Learning a mere four days after receiving the contributions.
This is big news because it was only last month that the Post uncovered Landrieu's role in pushing the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program on the city's public schools without their input. In her role as chairwoman of the Senate's D.C. appropriations subcommittee up until the middle of 2007, Landrieu has been closely involved in District affairs in recent years, going so far as to put a hold on Mayor Adrian Fenty's school takeover plan last year so as to extract concessions from the city.
These are still merely allegations, but they highlight a more serious point that we often bring up -- the District desperately needs budget autonomy. Whether by imposing a charter school program, proposing a flat tax for the city or forbidding city officials from funding needle-exchange programs, members of Congress all too often use their power to interfere in what are plainly local affairs.
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leave mary alone!
What a joke. Like this is the first time in history that an elected official has accepted campaign funds with a string attached. Please.
At this point, the adjective "corrupt" is automatically implied when you reference a louisiana politician.
She was born in Arlington, so thats sort of local...
First thing we do, get rid of the politicians.
Two things:
1) Chances of this complaint going anywhere are minimal.
2) Didn't the program actually show some indications of success? And while I agree on the need for DC budget autonomy, if I remember correctly, in this case the Feds gave DCPS an additional $2M for free and with no requirement of matching local funds. So it's more of an issue of an earmark and not comparable to the ban on spending DC funds on voting rights or needle buyback programs.
Funny, the DC Council getting free Wiggles tickets was akin to Teapot Dome, but no one seems to have a problem with Senator using DC schools as an ATM.
Yeah! Ted Stevens gets bridges built! Lay off the effective corrupt senators!
Corruption in Louisiana politics? I find this hard to believe.
Oh yeah and that "total budget autonomy" has worked so well in the past. Remember the DC Financial Control Board put in place because our elected officials could not balance a checkbook if it had 20 cents as a balance.
One final point...$40 million plus...
Mary is a stand up woman who actually gives a $hit...sometimes politics can be a dirty game but she has been one of the good guys for years.
What does budget autonomy have to do with a federal earmark? What locality has autonomy over the way the feds decide to spend money in their district?
I don't understand the hubub. This was, as DC officials put it, 'found money'. They weren't forced to use this money. This wasn't provided in lieu of something else. It was an EXTRA budget appropriation put in after all other DC budget items had already been done. Literally a $2 million freebie.
How exactly is a freebie somehow dissing DC rights?
And Landrieu has been a champion of DC for years. She lives in the city, whilst many politicians opt for the burbs. She's been pretty active in advocating for DC, and she took her role on various DC subcommittees pretty seriously, actually doing her job instead of phoning it in like many would have.
And she hasn't used DC as a whipping boy for social issues like many have. Even though she clearly could have, as the city has it's head up it's ass in so many ways.
And it's not like the DC schools knew better than her. Turns out the program actually works. And the DC schools actually don't work.
Plus, she's reasonably hot. So give her a break already.
DCist needs to actually have a bit of institutional history and knowledge before they write sensationalistic crap like this. Lumping Landrieu in with losers that have messed with the city on needle exchange, gay rights, and the like is poor journalism at best and sortof reeks of surface-level analysis.
"she has been one of the good guys for years."
BS.. this earmark isn't an issue, but Landrieu is an oil company stooge.
Hillman,
Sorry, but I disagree with you. I don't care how well-intentioned she might be -- school issues are to be left to school officials. And whether the program works or not -- and there plenty of debate on that front -- isn't the issue, it's that a sitting U.S. senator from LOUISIANA decided that our schools should use a particular program without actually running it by the people who might have some better insight.
Sure, she's better than almost everyone, but that's not an excuse.
Martin: But did she actually mandate that DCPS *had* to use that money? Couldn't they have passed up the extra $2M and not used the program?
I really don't get the gripe. It's an earmark abuse issue, not a District budget autonomy issue.
"it's that a sitting U.S. senator from LOUISIANA decided that our schools should use a particular program without actually running it by the people who might have some better insight."
Martin--as Hillman stated, isn't it the case that DC didn't *have* to use the money? It was appropriated for the particular program. But the people "who might have better insight" (I'm assuming the DC school board) didn't have to use the funds. Unless I'm completely misreading this.
I don't care how well-intentioned she might be -- school issues are to be left to school officials.
Because they've been doing such a great job over the years. DCPS has been in a steady decline since Brown v. Board of Education desegregated the system. That decline accelerated in the '70s and '80s to the point where non-English-speaking kids in GUAM were scoring better on English proficiency tests than DCPS kids. They've had half a century to fix or at least slow-down the decline yet we spend more per kid than any other school system in the Nation.
I know what you're thinking. "So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause." And you're probably right. But there are a lot of reasons why the school system is f***ed. Congressional meddling isn't one of them. So the attitude that "they may be idiots but they're OUR idiots" doesn't wash with me or a lot of other DC lifers who've seen the pols and the superintendents and the money come and go.
Jeebus, DC schools are a bigger mess than a Peter North video. And if you have any idea what I'm talking about, your loneliness makes me weep.
Martin,
Allow me to respectfully disagree.
Your point about a senator from Louisiana meddling in the DC schools is largely correct. But what has the DC School Board done during the Home Rule Era to inspire any confidence that it knows what it's doing or to earn any deference from outside interference? Should we simply leave school issues to school officials no matter how incompetent they are?
BabyRat is going to be entering the DC school system in a couple of years, I don't care who does what; I just need the schools fixed.
Best,
HR
It's my understanding DCPS could have refused the funds and the program entirely. There was no mandated use. Hence the freebie argument.
And let's face it. DC ain't getting autonomy anytime soon. Any sitting Senator knows that. Hell, my dog knows that. And it's far beyond the capability of one Senator to change that.
So I'd argue that as long as it's reality that DC ain't getting autonomy then a Senator in charge of DC affairs has a moral duty to provide things like this. Especially after seeing what a clusterfuck DC schools are.
It's not like if Senator Landrieu had decided not to earmark these funds then magically DC would have voting rights, total budget autonomy, etc. It's not either/or. It's the best of a crappy situation that we all know ain't changing anytime soon.
Why are people jumping in to defend Landrieu on this one? Whether the district had to take the money or not, she represents the people of Louisiana, not the district, and should not be dictating how DC can use this money. All school districts receive federal funds of some sort; and if she were saying that some school district in Iowa had to use this program or no money, people would be up in arms.
The Post article (not just DCist)includes Landrieu in the long line of politicians who meddle in District affairs. This Voyager program isn't a disaster, but what if it had been? Its effectiveness hasn't been proven anywhere, including in DC. The school people are glad to have the money and supplies--but thats not a ringing endorsement of the program--and it's certainly not proof that it's working.
This program has been implemented in places solely because of the founder's political connections. Be cynical if you want, but her behavior is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to use DC's students as guinea pigs. DC schools are fucked up and something needs to change, but couldn't all of these programs have a destabilizing effect? If the kids get the Voyager reading one year, Houghton Mifflin the next, and Texas Bob's fun reading program the next, could that be good?
They've had half a century to fix or at least slow-down the decline yet we spend more per kid than any other school system in the Nation.
I had an interesting conversation with a guy that's fairly high up in the Prince William County School system (where I finished high school, Woodbridge '87) a couple of weeks ago. He was telling me that the per pupil spending numbers are largely useless as a basis of comparison because each school system calculates their numbers differently. For example, in Prince William their per pupil spending numbers do not include IT spending even though they have PCs in every classroom.
Add in the fact that the numbers for DC are being compared to the numbers for states and you can see why the District scores so poorly. Even so, DC is still #3 in per pupil spending trailing NY and NJ.
Whether or not the earmark was an abuse of DC's sovereignty, and whether or not the program in question has shown positive results, the whole incident still looks like a pretty egregious quid pro quo deal between a sitting Senator and a corporation to create a market for an unproven educational product.
Earmarks to support specific projects in specific locations can be troublesome, but earmarks that grant business to specific corporations and allow them to bypass the competitive marketplace are far more disturbing, and offer greater potential for abuse. Landrieu was out of line here not because she offered money to the DC schools with strings attached, but because she handpicked the program. Since the company had no actual track record to speak of, I don't think it's irrational or out of line to ask if their generosity to Landrieu was the reason they were selected.
The reason why per-pupil expenditures are so high is because of special education. The courts mandated that the District's special ed program was not meeting their needs, so those kids get private school at taxpayers expense. This is why a big part of getting those expenses down involves creating a District-run special ed program that meets the court's definition as adequate.
There's also the issue of teachers defining any student who's a problem as "special ed" but that's another issue.
Dixie:
Other than giving DC this $2 million freebie above and beyond the regular budget (which they were quite free to decline graciously), how exactly has Landrieu meddled in DC affairs?
She didn't "give" DC $2 million and it doesn't matter whether or not DC took the money. She used her position on the DC appropriations subcommittee to earmark $2 million for the (unproven, but well connected), Voyager Program in order to pay them back for contributing to her campaign.
It's not even meddling, it's using DC's children to settle political debts. If we want to talk about meddling, we can talk about her holding up Fenty's school plan AFTER our elected councilmembers voted for it.
Watchdog groups like this are flinging accusations and demands all over the place on a daily basis. The only reason you've hand picked this one is because of your righteous indignation over District meddling.
She used her position on the DC appropriations subcommittee to earmark $2 million for the (unproven, but well connected), Voyager Program in order to pay them back for contributing to her campaign.
Eleanor Holmes Norton could teach Landrieu a thing or two about how to handle earmarks: make sure to cover the homeless, widows and orphans, people with AIDS, and maybe something involving puppies.
Dixie:
So, no other examples of 'meddling'? Could that be perhaps because she hasn't 'meddled'?
The hold she placed on Fenty's school plan was to demand accountability on teacher standards and federal aspects of DC's school plan. That's her job. Like it or not, under the current system that's EXACTLY what she's supposed to be doing. You can argue the system is wrong, but as long as that's what we have I'm actually glad someone is demanding oversight and accountability, as DCPS sure ain't going to do that on their own.
And the simple fact still remains - this was a freebie, whose use was totally voluntary. If DCPS officials felt it was inappropriate they could have refused to participate.
Yes, this company gave her campaign money. Just like a jillion other companies have given money to a jillion other Senators. That may or may not be a good way to do business, but there simply is nothing to support the idea that this was some sort of egregious bullying of DC officials, and it certainly isn't playing 'guinea pig' with DC students. If the program had been mandatory and some other program had been cut because of this then you may have a point. But it wasn't, so you don't.
If I were Landrieu and after years of trying to help DC all I got was bullshit like this from people I'd say fuck it and just quit trying.