Tenor of DeLay Inquiry May Hinge on Key Democrat

Until this year, the closest Rep. Alan B. Mollohan had come to national notice was when a citizen’s watchdog group named him “porker of the month” in May 2002, for steering millions of dollars in federal funding to his West Virginia district.

But this spring, Mollohan achieved the seemingly impossible. As the senior Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, he forced Republican leaders to back down -- twice -- from changes they wanted in the panel as it prepared to investigate Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

He did it by leading the committee’s five Democrats in a boycott of the panel, shutting it down for six months, even as ethics questions about DeLay and other House members, Democrats and Republicans, went unanswered.

Eventually, Republicans rolled back the measures he opposed.

It is hard to say who was more surprised by Mollohan’s defiance -- Republicans or Democrats. Before the ethics showdown, many Republicans regarded Mollohan as a Democrat they could count on, especially when it came to dividing up federal money on the Appropriations Committee, where he is a long-serving member.

“He is from the old school,” House Appropriations Committee spokesman John Scofield said. “He sort of embodies that bipartisan tradition. When you cut a deal with him, he gives you his word and you can take it to the bank, even when he’s getting pressure from his own leadership.”

But members of both parties say Mollohan’s unbending stance in the partisan ethics dispute has brought an element of uncertainty to the next, crucial phase -- the scope of the expected probe of DeLay’s travels.

News stories have reported that some of DeLay’s overseas trips may have been paid for improperly by a lobbyist and an organization then registered as a foreign agent. DeLay has denied any wrongdoing, and has said he is eager to go before the committee to defend himself.

The ethics committee’s unique structure -- it is the only House panel divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans -- makes Mollohan the chamber’s only Democrat with the power to veto majority initiatives. And he approaches the negotiations over the DeLay probe having already proved he is willing to use that power.

With Republicans pushing for a narrowly focused investigation and Democrats insisting on a broad one, both parties are wondering which Mollohan will surface: Will it be the conciliatory appropriator who counts the GOP chairman of the appropriations subcommittee he serves on, Rep. James Walsh of New York, as his “best friend in Congress”? Or will it be the confrontational member of the Ethics Committee?

As an appropriator, Mollohan has routinely defied his party and supported Republican spending bills if doing so meant he could steer more federal dollars and jobs to his West Virginia district. He has often frustrated, and sometimes angered, some of the same Democrats who see him as a hero for his role on the ethics panel.

Republicans who know Mollohan well say his defiance did not surprise them. Mollohan, they say, is no ideologue -- but he is an institutionalist who reveres the House.

“Both of our fathers served here,” Walsh said. “We both have the same respect ... for the institution.”

Walsh added: “I think Alan believes that if the Ethics Committee is fair and balanced ... it protects both the minority and majority.”

The spotlight on Mollohan is expected to increase as both parties prepare for the DeLay inquiry and what it should cover.

Republicans “will try to make this seem like just a travel issue, and argue that all members of the House have these problems,” said one House Democratic aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Democrats, the aide said, will argue that “the issue is much broader. It is about solicitation of travel, the gift rules, the perception that there is a quid pro quo involved.”

Outside watchdog groups, meanwhile, have pronounced the committee incapable of rendering fair judgment. They are calling for a special counsel.

But Mollohan said he was confident that he and committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) would be able to hire an impartial staff, reach agreement on the probe’s scope and get on with their work -- retreating behind closed doors for confidential investigations into DeLay and other House members.

Born in the rural district he represents, the 62-year-old Mollohan won election to the seat his father, Rep. Robert Mollohan, retired from in 1982. The district covers the northern third of West Virginia, including Fairmont, his hometown.

“I knew from the time I was 9 years old that I wanted to be in Congress,” said Mollohan, who stood on the House floor beside his father in 1952 as the elder Mollohan took his oath of office.

“It was a sort of biological imprinting,” Mollohan joked.

The elder Mollohan encouraged his son to follow his example and seek a seat on the Armed Services Committee. But Mollohan said he knew within six months of coming to Capitol Hill that he wanted to be an appropriator, a member of the committee that holds the power of the purse and uses it to garner federal funds for members’ own districts and to reward or punish other House members in their decisions on the money.

In an office crammed with mementos, Mollohan pointed with pride to the framed tally, scratched in pencil on a scrap of pink paper, of the caucus vote that granted him a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee more than two decades ago.

It is framed with a newspaper article reporting the “upset” because Mollohan was not the choice of the Democratic leadership, along with a handwritten note of congratulations from Democrat Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia’s senior senator.

Like Byrd, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Mollohan has displayed an affinity for the appropriations process. He has kept federal dollars flowing into his district for such projects as the Alan B. Mollohan Innovation Center, a $12-million high-tech office complex in Fairmont, and the Vandalia Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes preservation and redevelopment projects in the area.

Mollohan’s relentless search for federal funds earned him brickbats from Citizens Against Waste, the watchdog group that named him its porker of the month three years ago.

Tom Schatz, the group’s president, said Mollohan earned the award for using federal funds to create the nonprofit Vandalia foundation.

“In the 2002-2003 appropriations bill, he got $6 million for Vandalia for ‘community development,’ ” Schatz said. “Money continues to go there.”

Mollohan is unapologetic. “We have spent an awful lot of effort identifying national needs that can be met in West Virginia,” he said.

He also has sought to turn traditional mining areas in his district into high-tech centers.

Although Mollohan fought to become an appropriator, he said he reacted with “trepidation” when the Democratic leadership asked him three years ago to serve a second stint on the Ethics Committee. He had served six years on it in the 1980s.

“It’s a serious proposition to have an organization composed of your colleagues determine whether you are comporting with the rules,” he said.

On the Ethics Committee, there are no rewards to be doled out -- only pain.

But he expressed confidence that this year’s procedural battles would neither cripple the committee’s ability to investigate the majority leader, nor preclude it from reaching credible findings.

“The mission of the Ethics Committee is to consider facts that are commonly shared,” Mollohan said. “It is hard to look across the table at your colleagues and deny your responsibility. At the end of the day, your facts are your refuge.”