Senators Vote 96-0 to Denounce Durenberger : Ethics: Minnesota Republican is chastised for financial dealings. He is also fined $130,000.

In a dramatic session, the Senate voted, 96 to 0, Wednesday to denounce and fine Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) for “reprehensible” financial dealings that “brought the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”

Durenberger, who earlier had told senators that he would not contest the recommendation of the Senate Ethics Committee, pledged in a steady voice immediately after the roll call to be “first a better man and then a better senator.”

With colleagues arrayed around him in rapt silence, the tall, distinguished-looking Minnesotan told them “how deeply sorry I am for the painful--and necessary--experience we’ve just been through and for the extra burden my misconduct has placed on each of you.”

“If there is a smudge on the seal of the United States Senate, or on the Star of the North, as we like to call our state, I will work my hardest to polish both back to brightness,” he said at the end of the televised session.

Durenberger was accused primarily of violating Senate rules on outside income and expense reimbursement. He became the seventh senator in the 20th Century to be censured, condemned or denounced, the Senate’s most severe punishments for a member short of expulsion.

Durenberger and Minnesota’s other senator, Republican Rudy Boschwitz, both abstained from voting on the resolution that denounced Durenberger and fined him about $130,000 for “clearly and unequivocally unethical” conduct. Two senators were absent: Republicans Larry Pressler of South Dakota and Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming.

The vote was taken after three hours of speeches in which Ethics Committee leaders extensively damned Durenberger’s financial dealings but other colleagues effusively praised his accomplishments and expressions of remorse.

The drama of the occasion was heightened by the presence of six other senators who are under investigation by the Ethics Committee--Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) and Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.).

Those other cases were thrust into the Durenberger debate by several senators who called for major revisions in the ethics investigation process. They complained that it is too long and that it gives targeted senators too little opportunity to present their cases.

The disciplining of Durenberger occurred on the eve of what is expected to be a bitter floor fight in the House today over the appropriate punishment for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). The House Ethics Committee has proposed reprimanding Frank for help he gave to a male prostitute, but some Republicans have called for his censure or expulsion.

In the Senate, Durenberger sat impassively and his colleagues riffled through pages of evidence as Ethics Committee Chairman Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) detailed how Durenberger had used a book promotion deal to evade Senate limits on speech honorariums and improperly obtained rent reimbursements from the Senate on an apartment he owned.

Committee Vice Chairman Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) said that the panel had not found that Durenberger acted with malice. But there was “unassailable and irrebuttable evidence,” he said, that his improper actions were taken “consciously, willfully and knowingly.”

Rudman expressed sympathy with Durenberger’s claim that severe family and financial problems had impaired his judgment. But, he added that--although those facts are serious and compelling--they “cannot be an excuse for conduct as a United States senator, and he has essentially acknowledged that.”

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) led a parade of Republican senators who, without condoning Durenberger’s conduct, paid tribute to his personal qualities, legislative skills and determination to make amends.

“He’s never ducked the tough issues,” Dole said. “And he isn’t ducking now in the face of rough times.”

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) acknowledged that Durenberger is a “well-liked” senator who had made “important contributions to the work of the Senate, particularly in health care and protection of the environment.” Mitchell said that he was uncomfortable because he has worked closely with Durenberger on such matters as clean air legislation.

Nevertheless, Mitchell added, “we owe it to this institution . . . to uphold standards of conduct . . . no matter what personal discomfort we may feel.”

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who sits on the Ethics Committee, said the panel had recommended that Durenberger be “denounced” rather than “censured,” a slightly harsher term, because he had demonstrated “no venal intent.”

“Personal events did cloud his judgment, which definitely came into our thinking,” Lott said.

Lott called for revising the Senate’s ethics process, especially speeding up investigations.

“It lends itself to death by a thousand slashes . . . . This (Durenberger matter) has gone on almost two years,” Lott said.

Noting that the committee’s special counsel, Robert S. Bennett, had appeared before the panel 21 times, while Durenberger’s attorney, James Hamilton, had appeared thrice, Lott said that the process is “prosecutorial in nature, and that bothers me.”

Senate Minority Whip Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), a close friend of Durenberger, said he believes that the 55-year-old senator, who faces reelection in 1994, would “emerge as a better man, a better husband, father and senator.”

Simpson observed that Durenberger had been actively involved in civil rights and clean air bills even as the ethics investigation was reaching a climax. “He could have withered and fallen into self-pity, but he seemed to gain strength. I think he’ll be an even more effective legislator,” he said.