Author Archives: HyeNelmsamd

Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah Just Got Indicted. Here’s What He’s Accused Of.

by HyeNelmsamd Posted on July 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Department of Justice dropped 29 federal racketeering charges on Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) and a handful of close associates this morning, claiming that he diverted campaign and charitable funds to cover the cost of a failed mayoral run and to pay off his son’s student loans. Investigators have been circling Chattah for years. Last year, a top aide pleaded guilty to helping Fattah divert the money towards his son’s student loan debt, and Fattah’s son is awaiting trial on federal charges of his own in connection to the scheme.

Fattah is the second Democratic member of Congress to be indicted on corruption charges by the Department of Justice this year. New Jersey’s Sen. Bob Menendez was indicted in April, stemming from accusations he helped a campaign donor obtain benefits from the federal government in exchange for favors. Fattah, who was first elected in 1995, is the third sitting member of Congress to be indicted on corruption charges in the last two years. Former Republican Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), who represented Staten Island, was charged with fraud and tax evasion in April 2014 and was sentenced to eight months in prison earlier this month.

In this case, Fattah and his associates face a slew of charges, including mail fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. In announcing the charges, the DOJ assembled a laundry list of alleged misdeeds, including:

Using a secret $1 million loan from a wealthy supporter to back his 2007 run for mayor of Philadelphia.
Repaying the donor’s loan through a nonprofit Fattah controlled that had received funding from the federal government.
Attempting to steer a $15 million federal grant to a political consultant who Fattah’s campaign owed $130,000.
Using campaign funds to pay a consulting company, which then paid off $23,000 in student loans for Fattah’s son.
Taking an $18,000 bribe from an associate in exchange for attempting to secure him an ambassadorship and masking the bribe in the form of a fake car sale.

Fattah and his alleged co-conspirators could face decades in prison if convicted.

Fattah represents Pennsylvania’s 2nd congressional district, an overwhelmingly Democratic district that encompasses much of the city of Philadelphia and its close suburbs. Despite his son’s indictment and the guilty plea by his aide last summer, Fattah easily won reelection last fall with 88 percent of the vote.

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Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah Just Got Indicted. Here’s What He’s Accused Of.

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Yes, Republicans Really Are Unprecedented in Their Obstructionism

by HyeNelmsamd Posted on August 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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When we talk about Republican obstruction of judicial nominees in the Senate, the usual way is to look at filibusters and cloture votes. But that can sometimes be misleading, since cloture votes can happen for a variety of reasons. Or we can look at the raw number of seats filled. But that can be misleading too, since this can depend on how aggressive the president is about nominating new judges in the first place. A better way may be to simply look at how long nominees are delayed. That’s easier to measure, and long delays mostly happen for only one reason: because the minority party is blocking floor votes.

Via Jonathan Bernstein, the chart on the right comes from @Mansfield2016. It shows pretty clearly what’s happened to judicial nominees over the past couple of decades. Under George HW Bush, nominees that made it to the Senate floor were voted on almost immediately. The majority Democrats waited only a few days to schedule a vote.

That jumped suddenly when Bill Clinton became president and Republicans started delaying his nominees. Things settled down and delays plateaued during George W Bush’s administration.

And then came Barack Obama. Once more delays spiked. Even after the rules were changed, delays have stayed high, averaging about 80 days. This is far higher than it was under Bush or Clinton. Bernstein comments:

I believe that Senate rules requiring super-majority cloture for judicial nominations are an excellent idea, provided the minority observes the Senate norm of using filibusters rarely. Unfortunately, Republicans simply haven’t abided by longstanding Senate norms. After Obama’s election, they suddenly insisted that every nomination required 60 votes — an unprecedented hurdle. They blockaded multiple nominations to the DC Circuit Court. They have, before and after filibuster reform, used Senate rules to delay even nominations that they have intended ultimately to support. Since reform, they have imposed the maximum delay on every single judicial nominee.

Ideally, I’d like to see a compromise that restores the minority’s ability to block selected judicial nominees. But right now, the more pressing concern is that if Republicans win a Senate majority in November, they may simply shut down all nominations for two full years. That would be absolutely outrageous. Yet it seems entirely plausible.

That final comment is what makes these numbers even more outrageous. It’s fairly normal for a minority party to start delaying nominees in the final year or two of an administration. Obviously they’re hoping to win the presidency soon and they want to leave as many seats open as possible for their guy to fill. This tends to inflate the average numbers for an administration.

But that hasn’t happened yet for Obama. His numbers for his first five years are far, far higher than Bush’s even though Bush’s are inflated by delays during his final year in office. It’s just another example of the fact that, no, both parties aren’t equally at fault for the current level of government dysfunction. Republicans greeted Obama’s inauguration with an active plan of maximal obstruction of everything he did, regardless of what it was or how necessary it might be in the face of an epic economic collapse. No other party in recent history has done that. It’s a new thing under the sun.

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Yes, Republicans Really Are Unprecedented in Their Obstructionism

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