There’s an old proverb that says “the wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”
Last week, we saw a prime example of this in the FEC’s decision to fine U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree’s campaign nearly $23,000 for accepting travel on her then-fiance Donald Sussman’s private jet — in violation of campaign finance laws.
The story first came to light back in 2010, when a young news website called Watchdog.org produced a video showing Pingree and Sussman disembarking from a corporate jet at Portland International Jetport, complete with red carpet treatment. The plane was owned by Sussman’s corporation, a billion-dollar hedge fund called Paloma Partners.
Watchdog caught scent of the story when it noticed that Pingree’s office accrued reimbursements for more individual travel expenses than any other member in the House of Representatives. By painstakingly comparing flight logs of Sussman’s jet with Pingree’s travels and voting record, it found that several of her trips to Washington, D.C., from Maine and back mirrored the locations of Sussman’s jet.
The act itself stood out as an egregious case of influence-buying by the rich and powerful, but it looked even worse in light of Pingree’s past actions. The congresswoman had criticized this exact sort of behavior back in 2006 before she was sent to Washington by Maine voters. After the Jack Abramoff scandal, she had even pushed for an ethics-reform law that would ban privately funded travel entirely.
“Most Americans never have and never will fly on a chartered jet, much less a fancy corporate jet complete with wet bar and leather couches,” Pingree said, according to written remarks before the Subcommittee on the Constitution. “So when members of Congress constantly fly around on corporate jets and pay only the cost of a commercial ticket, it contributes to the corrosive public perception that members of Congress are more like the fat cats of Wall Street than they are like the rest of us.”
Pingree’s shameful display of hypocrisy was a classic case of “do what I say, not what I do.” News outlets around the country picked up the story, but there were no legal ramifications from the incident at the time. The House Ethics Committee cleared her of wrongdoing, but after a complaint filed by the Maine Republican Party in response to Watchdog’s story, the FEC also began investigating the incident. Under the FEC’s more robust rules, the commission found that the flights did in fact constitute improper gifts to Pingree’s campaign. And so as a direct result of Watchdog’s reporting nearly five years ago, Pingree finally has to answer for breaking campaign laws. She has been fined $9,750 and ordered to repay more than $13,000 for the flights.
Stories like this one — five years in the making — offer us an encouraging reminder that abuses of power don’t always fade permanently into the past, and it teaches us that the press still has power to spur our government to action, albeit slowly. Before news of the FEC’s fine, Pingree’s scandal had mostly passed out of sight and out of mind. Perhaps she even figured she was in the clear. But even when a tree falls in the forest and everyone forgets they heard it, it can still eventually make a sound.
Erik Telford is president of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, based in Alexandria, Virginia.