The news story growing out of Nevada Sen. John Ensign's extramarital affair with a campaign staff member -- who was also the wife of his close friend and senior aide -- still has "legs." New developments keep pulling the story back into the headlines.
First, there was the decision of the senator's parents to provide cash help to Doug and Cynthia Hampton after they left the senator's employ. Any relatively wealthy parents might use their resources to help their son in such an unhappy situation, but the payments bore a clear resemblance to "hush money."
Now, Doug Hampton is being accused of using his influence and his personal relationship with Sen. Ensign to benefit his new lobbying clients -- despite Senate ethics rules that require a one-year hiatus before a former staffer lobbies the senator or his staffers. Sen. Ensign denies any improper lobbying has taken place.
"I've recommended him for jobs, just like I've recommended a lot of people -- but we absolutely did nothing except for comply exactly with what ethics laws and rules of the Senate state," Sen. Ensign tells CNN's Dana Bush.
Some critics -- and even some members of his own party, unhappy with the way the Ensign affair has kept the GOP in the news in a less than favorable light -- have called for Sen. Ensign to resign, which he says he has no intention of doing.
"I am focused on doing my work, and I'm going to continue to focus on my work," the senator said this week.
UNLV political expert Ken Fernandez says that's a smart move. "It doesn't make sense for him to resign now. It would hurt his party. He has really no incentive to resign."
Mr. Fernandez is right. The people of Nevada elected Sen. Ensign to represent them and their interests in Washington -- casting votes for enhanced liberty, responsible budgeting, lower taxes, and a pared-back, less meddlesome federal bureaucracy.
His personal behavior -- though his wife says they've put the matter behind them -- was embarrassing and stupid. Even afterward, instead of making a clean breast of the entire affair -- calling in the police if he felt he was being blackmailed or extorted for cash or favors -- the senator made only partial acknowledgements, leaving other "shoes to fall" and thus guaranteeing the story would drag on.
The senator would do well to stop hiding and step into the spotlight to answer some tough questions. In the meantime, he should cooperate with any ethics or criminal investigations as they run their course.
But at this point, Sen. Ensign does not appear to have broken laws or taken personal advantage of his Senate office. His vote on behalf of Nevada's interests still carries the same weight it did a year ago.
No senator has been expelled from the body as a result of an "ethics" probe since the Civil War. Yet we're to believe Sen. Ensign should resign, running out on constituents who elected him to do the job, because of personal conduct which -- while stupid and embarrassing -- is frankly of a "line forms on the left" variety?
"The ultimate accountability is through the political process," Stan Brand, a former House counsel and expert on congressional ethics, told ABC News. "If people think the system has failed, they have the ability to make a decision at the ballot box."
In 2012.
RSS