Which fish are worth frying?

Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006 | 7:04 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's decision not to investigate allegations that Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., made illegal campaign fundraising calls from his office raises a question central to ethics reform in the new Congress: What if there's a law on the books and no one enforces it?

Experts say they know of no congressman ever being prosecuted under the law banning them from soliciting cash from their offices, a violation punishable by fines and imprisonment.

Justice Department officials have "bigger fish to fry," as one veteran Washington election law attorney put it - pointing to the bribery of now-imprisoned former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., and the $90,000 found in the freezer of re-elected Rep. William Jefferson, D-La.

But ethics reform groups say the failure to investigate less sensational allegations feeds into a culture of corruption in Washington, which Democrats have vowed to clean up in January on their first day on the job as the party in control of Congress.

"There are a lot of rules, that have been in place for reasons, that have been ignored," said Mary Boyle, spokeswoman for Common Cause, a political watchdog group.

In the weeks before the Nov. 7 election, a former Porter staff member claimed that the congressman made fundraising calls from his offices in Washington and Henderson. E-mails obtained by the Sun showed conversations, apparently dealing with the phone calls, between the aide and other members of Porter's staff and campaign.

Porter has steadfastly denied having made the calls.

"Congressman Porter has stated, repeatedly, that he has done nothing wrong and welcomes any investigation," his spokesman, Trevor Kolego, said in a statement Tuesday.

The former Porter aide, Jim Shepard, said last week he would try to have the matter heard by the House Ethics Committee, which has jurisdiction over representatives' behavior.

Kolego said Tuesday that Porter has not been contacted by the committee.

The committee does not comment on its work. But experts said Tuesday they doubt that it will take up the matter, arguing that it has become "toothless" in recent years.

Gerry Hebert, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, an ethics reform organization, said an "unholy alliance" has developed on the panel: Republican members don't go after Democrats and, in return, Democrats don't go after Republicans.

The truce dates from the late 1990s, after the committee investigated former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who ultimately resigned.

Last year the Republican leadership sent a "chilling" message, Boyle said, when it replaced committee members who investigated former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who stepped down from his leadership post and later resigned.

Because only the committee or a member of Congress can request an investigation, outsiders have little recourse under the current climate, experts said.

Hebert's organization and others are pushing Democrats to create an independent Office of Public Integrity to investigate matters involving members of Congress.

"That's why the voters voted for reform," said Hebert, a former federal prosecutor. "It's because they see the system as being broken. Here's a chance to fix it. Matters like this will be investigated and will be dealt with."

But longtime election law expert Jan Witold Baran calls such reforms "overkill."

He said members of Congress are well aware of the laws banning them from using their offices for campaign calls, which is why both Republicans and Democrats have so-called call rooms set up just steps from the Capitol.

For investigators who need to decide where to put limited resources, dialing for dollars from campaign offices hardly compares to the pay-to-play scandals that have rocked Capitol Hill.

"It's not a big deal," Baran said of the Porter case. "One, he denied it. Two, making a few phone calls from a House office is not a capital crime. You've got a congressman with $90,000 in his freezer ... You've got bigger fish to fry."

Besides, "there's always a jury every two years to evaluate what someone does - that's the voters," he added.

These days, members of Congress need to raise about $1,000 a day to fund a typical $1 million re-election campaign.

Raising cash always has come with restrictions. The law banning members of Congress from soliciting funds from their federal offices has been on the books since the 1880s, to prevent shakedowns and kickbacks , the experts said.

The law was amended with post-Watergate reforms in the 1970s. By the 1980s, both the Republicans and Democrats had moved their fundraising operations out of House office buildings.

The law was beefed up after then-Vice President Al Gore was investigated in the 1990s for making fundraising calls from the White House and questions were raised about fundraising by President Bill Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

David Dulio, a political scientist at Oakland University in Michigan and author of "Shades of Gray," a text on campaign ethics, said the laws are on the books for a reason.

Imagine the influence that could be wielded, he said, if a member of Congress were writing legislation favorable to the donor on the phone.

"Making fundraising calls from their office, it just crosses the line," Dulio said. "All of those things were done to try to take corruption out of the process."