Rep. John Murtha was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress by CREW in our report, Beyond DeLay.  Today, Mr. Murtha's legendary earmarking skills are examined by papers in the nation's capitol and his homestate's capitol. 

First, the Washington Post has an extensive report on Rep. Murtha and a not-for-profit, Concurrent Technologies, which Murtha both helped create and certainly keeps well funded:

Behind the rise of Concurrent is Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, who helped arrange funding to launch the organization in 1988. Murtha has since arranged millions of dollars more in directed congressional appropriations called earmarks. Now Concurrent has nearly $250 million in annual revenue and 1,500 employees.

Concurrent is a prime example of how to marry entrepreneurial savvy, influence on Capitol Hill and arcane procurement rules to create budget magnets in congressional districts. Unlike many other big contractors, Concurrent pays no income tax on most of its revenue. Unlike nonprofit, federally funded research-and-development corporations, it is not chartered by the federal government.

Then, the Harrisburg Patriot-News editorializes about Murtha's earmarking:

Murtha's a master of the "earmark," those pet projects and special interest items that lawmakers tuck into appropriations bills with little public scrutiny. Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates that Murtha has directed $600 million in earmarks to his district in the last four years. Over his 33 years in Congress, the Journal found, many of his earmarks were for projects opposed by the Pentagon and other federal agencies as inefficient or unnecessary.

Earmarks have become the way of doing business in Washington, where they were perfected to an art form by the previous Republican Congress. But Murtha's use of them is almost legendary. Not only has he brought home the bacon, but the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which recently listed Murtha as one of the most corrupt members of Congress, says he uses his power as subcommittee chairman to threaten to withhold earmarks for others who don't see certain political matters his way.

Murtha defends the earmark process as a good one. He says individual members of Congress are in the best position to determine how money should be doled out in their districts.

That could be, but it has little to so with this system, which shortchanges taxpayers whose representatives and senators lack the seniority necessary to take the lid off the cookie jar.

Allegations of threats over earmarks could result in a House vote today on a reprimand for Rep. Murtha.   As the Washington Post's Paul Kane duly notes, earmarks are the source of much trouble on Capitol Hill:

The latest dustup has nothing to do with the war or Pelosi, however, and instead much more to do with congressional courtesy and special line-item spending measures known as earmarks. [Republicans have to tread very carefully in attacking Murtha, because they have at least a dozen members of their own who in recent years found themselves under federal investigation because of the way they steered earmarks to their own special interests.]

Rogers alleges that last Thursday Murtha approached him on the House floor and angrily denounced him for leading an effort to strip $23 million in funding from an intelligence authorization bill that is intended for the National Drug Intelligence Center, based in Murtha's hometown of Johnstown, Pa. Republicans believe that the money is wasteful and just an example of Murtha doing pork-barrel spending, while Murtha defends it as helping in the fight against illegal drugs.

But the incident moved beyond the drug center spending when, according to Rogers, Murtha threatened to pull any funding Rogers ever wanted from the Defense appropriations subcommittee, which Murtha chairs.

"I hope you don't have any earmarks in the defense appropriation bill because they are gone and you will not get any earmarks now and forever," Murtha shouted at Rogers, according to Rogers' account. This prompted a Rogers retort of: "This is not the way we do things here and is that supposed to make me afraid of you?"

Earlier this week, The Washington Post took a close look at the legislative dealings of Congressman John Murtha. Today, an editorial in his home district newspaper examines what that means for Murtha. The conclusion is more scrutiny:

But for Murtha, a guy who has battled the past several months with the Bush administration and who has been highly criticized by several veterans groups for his stand on Iraq, 2007 will bring more political power, a subcommittee chairmanship – and even more scrutiny.

And come January, Democrats have promised to begin work on an ethics package demanding more transparency in the doling out of federal funds to home-district projects and a required pledge that no earmarks benefit a member of Congress personally.

We agree with The Post report that this could put an uncomfortable spotlight on lawmakers such as Murtha.

Democrats maintain that ethics reform will be a top priority when they take power next week.   Clearly, many observers and reporters will be watching to see how those reforms affect lawmakers like John Murtha. 

"A real tangled web" is how one skeptic described the relationship between Congressman John Murtha, defense lobbyists, former staffers and a non-profit organization in his district.  The Washington Post tried to unravel the web in yestersday's paper:

For a quarter of a century, Carmen Scialabba labored for Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), helping parcel out the billions of dollars that came through the House Appropriations Committee, so when the disabled aide needed a favor, Murtha was there.

In 2001, Murtha announced the creation of Scialabba's nonprofit agency for the disabled in Johnstown, Pa. The next year, with Scialabba still on his staff, Murtha secured a half-million dollars for the group, the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals With Disabilities (PAID), and put another $150,000 in the pipeline for 2003, according to appropriations committee records and former committee aides. Since then, the group has helped hundreds of disabled people find work.

But the group serves another function as well. PAID has become a gathering point for defense contractors and lobbyists with business before Murtha's defense appropriations subcommittee, and for Pennsylvania businesses and universities that have thrived on federal money obtained by Murtha.

Lobbyists and corporate officials serve as directors on the nonprofit group's board, where they help raise money and find jobs for Johnstown's disabled workers. Some of those lobbyists have served as intermediaries between the defense contractors and businessmen on the board, and Murtha and his aides.

The Post noted that "[Murthat] is assuming the chairmanship of the defense subcommittee, his actions are coming under new scrutiny."     CREW has already been scrutinizing Murtha.  He was named as one of the members of Congress "to watch" in our report, Beyond DeLay.  

The election for House Majority Leader revolved around the ethical failings of Congressman John Murtha.  By pushing Murtha, Pelosi undermined her commitment to ethics reform.  There is now great pressure on the incoming Speaker to deliver on that issue according to The New York Times: 

Mr. Murtha would have been a farcical presence in a leadership promising the cleanest Congress in history. Ms. Pelosi should have been first to realize this, having made such a fiery campaign sword of her vows to end Capitol corruption. Instead, she acted like some old-time precinct boss and lost the first test before her peers.

As incoming speaker, Ms. Pelosi will be dogged by skepticism — from within the party and without — about her political smarts and her ability to deliver a galvanized agenda.

It was a no-brainer for the caucus to end the misguided fight for Mr. Murtha, who belittled the need for reform. Now the pressure is even greater for Speaker-elect Pelosi to recover by leading the House to something actually worth fighting for — starting with credible anticorruption strictures.

Credible is the key.  We'll be watching, too. 

The media seems to remember Nancy Pelosi's commitment to oversee the "most ethical Congress in history."  They also are going to hold her to those words: 

Was it only a week ago that a triumphant Nancy Pelosi, presumptive new speaker of the House, crowed to an Election Night crowd that "Democrats intend to lead the most open, the most honest and the most ethical Congress in history"?

Well, so much for that promise.

Obviously choosing not to lead by example, Pelosi has thrown the prestige of her new position behind the ethically tainted Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania for majority leader, spurning the man who's in line for the job, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

A bitterly divided House Democratic caucus votes today - and if it goes with Murtha, it'll have selected one of the most ethically dubious members of the entire Congress.

Indeed, many of the good-government groups that decried the state of ethics in the GOP-controlled Congress have long complained that Murtha represents just about everything that's wrong with Washington.

That's what Michael Crowley says over at TNR's blog, The Plank:

This may be finish off Murtha's leadership campaign. His best comeback to talk of Abscam and grubby dealmaking and coziness with lobbyists is that he'll sign on to Pelosi's reform agenda and start leading by example. But it sounds like he's just saying whatever's necessary to win power. And unless there's some convincing refutation of these quotes, how can Pelosi still stand by him?

John Murtha spoke about ethics today. He made his views pretty clear.  Roll Call broke the story (Roll Call requires subcription. CREW's website has the full article):

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told a group of Democratic moderates on Tuesday that an ethics and lobbying reform bill being pushed by party leaders was “total crap,” but said that he would work to enact the legislation because Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports it.

Murtha and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are locked in a battle for the House Majority Leader post, and both men made presentations for to the Blue Dog Coalition on Tuesday in a bid for their votes.

“Even though I think it’s total crap, I’ll vote for it and pass it because that’s what Nancy wants,” Murtha told the Blue Dogs, according to three sources who were at the meeting.

Norman Ornstein's column in today's Roll Call takes a close look at Murtha's long history of ethics issues. He spends a fair amount of time reviewing the ABSCAM scandal of 25 years ago. Some are claiming that's ancient history. But, Ornstein also deals with the more recent efforts by Murtha to undermine ethics reform:

OK, this was more than 25 years ago; people change. So let’s fast-forward to May 2006. The House Republicans brought up a lobbying and ethics reform package that was a bad joke — one that appalled and embarrassed even many of their own Members. The rule on the package was the typical one from the Rules Committee — no meaningful amendments allowed. But before the vote on final passage, there was a vote on a motion to recommit with instructions, which became a vote on a much more robust and meaningful Democratic alternative. To newcomers to the House: The motion to recommit with instructions usually is a joke itself — framed by the majority leadership not as a real alternative but as a procedural vote that demanded party unity in opposition.

The ethics package was the only occasion in which more than a tiny handful of Republicans bucked their leaders and voted for the Democratic alternative — 20 of them did so in this case, providing an opening for a real reform to pass the House. Except that four Democrats voted against their own party, killing ethics and lobbying reform all by themselves. Among them: John Murtha. Why? We recently learned from The New York Times that Murtha traded away lobbying and ethics reform in return for earmarks from the Republican leaders.

Murtha is a skilled and experienced legislator, a war hero and an articulate and passionate opponent of the Bush administration policy toward Iraq. He also is deeply ethically challenged. Electing him as Majority Leader is no way to start out the most ethical Congress in history.