$2,000 to Each From Supplier : Badham, 5 Colleagues Took Money Before Vote

Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) was among a group of six lawmakers who accepted $2,000 honorariums from a Wisconsin trucking company hours before voting on a measure that forced the U.S. Army to buy 500 more trucks from the firm than it wanted.

Although Badham and aides for some of the other congressmen who attended the April, 1987, breakfast said Friday that the timing of the payments was merely “coincidental” with their vote last year, some critics called it a blatant conflict of interest.

“It’s legalized corruption,” charged Philip M. Stern, the Washington-based author of “The Best Congress Money Can Buy.”

“This happens routinely and legally in Congress,” Stern said.

“There’s no question that it looks bad,” added Lewis Clark, executive director of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based government watchdog group.

Badham, however, called the $2,000 honorarium from the Oshkosh Truck Corp. “absolutely meaningless” in terms of his decision-making on the truck issue.

The honorarium disclosures were contained in financial disclosure statements the congressmen had to file for 1987 by last month and were the subject of news reports published Friday. Federal law allows members of Congress to accept honorariums up to $2,000.

The vote in question was taken on April 1, 1987, hours after Badham and six other members of the House Armed Services Committee were taken to breakfast by Oshkosh executives and given $2,000 honorariums each; the maximum allowed by law.

Oshkosh officials, also insisting the timing of the breakfast was coincidental, said they gave the honorariums to compensate the elected officials for their time.

Besides Badham, the other congressmen present were Democrats Marvin Leath of Texas, Roy Dyson of Maryland, Norman Sisisky of Virginia and Republicans Bill Dickinson of Alabama and Larry J. Hopkins of Kentucky, according to aides for the congressmen.

Amendment Approved

Afterward, the House Armed Services Procurement Subcommittee--which included all of the congressmen at the breakfast except Dickinson, who is a ranking Republican on the full committee--voted overwhelmingly to approve an amendment sponsored by Leath that forced the Army to buy 500 more of Oshkosh’s 10-ton trucks. The trucks are used by the military as support tankers and ammunition haulers.

At the time of the vote, the Army had purchased about 700 Oshkosh trucks since 1981 under a $239-million contract, which was extended for five years after Leath’s amendment eventually was passed by Congress. The Oshkosh trucks cost $130,000 each.

Since the measure passed on a voice vote, a record was not made on how each of the congressmen voted. Badham, Dyson and Hopkins voted in favor of Leath’s amendment, the congressmen and their aides said Friday. Sisisky’s office said he voted against.

Badham and aides to those other congressmen who could be contacted Friday said the honorariums had no influence on the amendment vote because they already had made up their minds on the issue, and had supported Oshkosh in the past.

Badham, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, said he voted for the measure because the Army wanted to scrap the trucks in favor of a more costly program to develop a truck with a superior loading and unloading system.

Badham Retiring

Badham, who is retiring at the end of this year, said he had wanted to block the Army’s plans for a new trucking system “well before Oshkosh came to town.”

He added angrily, “If anybody wants to say I can be bought for $2,000, I’d like him to state that to my eye. That is patently absurd.”

Stern, however, likened the taking of cash in advance of a pertinent vote to a judge accepting money from one of the participants in a court case before he or she renders a judgment.

“It would be unthinkable,” Stern said.

Katie Tucker, press aide to Dyson, said he would not have accepted the honorarium if he did not already have a history of supporting Oshkosh.

“The honorarium was not going to change his vote one way or another because he was already in favor of it,” Tucker said.

Hopkins’ press aide Larry VanHoose said, “The appearances are bad and he regrets that, but he certainly felt no pressure from the Oshkosh people, especially at that breakfast.”

V.P. (Pres) Grove, Oshkosh’s vice president of governmental affairs, said the impending vote was not even discussed at the breakfast. The topic of discussion, Grove added, was Oshkosh’s line of trucks. He said the breakfast was held that day because it was the only time he could arrange for a meeting.

“It just turned out to be that was the day I could get them all,” Grove said.