Out Of Congress And Still Out Of Work
A handful of incumbents who lost last fall have yet to land new full-time jobs.
They include former Reps. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, Thelma Drake of Virginia and Nick Lampson of Texas. Theres also former New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu, whose latest Washington assignment is only part-time.
A former top Bush administration official, too, has had trouble finding work. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned under fire in September 2007.
A federal prosecutor is looking into whether Gonzales, other Bush administration officials or Republicans in Congress should face criminal charges in the firings of the U.S. attorneys.
“With respect to employment, listen, I can understand in a very tough economy, some employers are going to be very hesitant about bringing someone like me on when you have an ongoing investigation,” Gonzales said in a CNN interview this month.
Shays, 63, who was New Englands last Republican House member, has similarly had a rough time.
After narrowly losing his bid for an 11th term to Democrat Jim Himes in November, Shays has gotten a painful lesson in the darker side of campaign finance. He must sort out what happened to more than $190,000 he says may have been embezzled from his failed re-election bid.
Ironically, the man who crusaded on Capitol Hill for years against the corrosive influence of money in politics needs to raise cash to cover his campaign debt.
While he tackles the money mess, Shays is weighing job prospects. His one-time foe, Himes, has sought support from colleagues in urging President Barack Obama to appoint Shays to head the Peace Corps. Shays is a former Peace Corps volunteer.
“Hes busy exploring and evaluating his various opportunities and determining what his next move is going to be,” said Michael Fox, a Shays spokesman.
Shays has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against his former campaign manager, Michael Sohn, about the missing money. The FBI has been informed and has begun a criminal investigation, Shays campaign said in an FEC filing. A grand jury has also been investigating. Sohn has not been charged with any wrongdoing and his lawyer has declined comment.
There were dozens of unauthorized campaign account transactions, including 29 checks totaling $83,561, more than $70,000 in unauthorized ATM withdrawals and $21,835 in debit card transactions, Shays FEC filings show.
“I am just slowing it down for a little while,” she said in an e-mail. “I am catching up with friends, doing things I could never get to and I did not want to rush into the next adventure. I want to decide what that is.”
Drake listed several properties worth a total between $2 million and $4.3 million on her House financial disclosure form filed last year. The forms only require that assets be reported in broad dollar ranges. Most of the properties were owned jointly with her husband and most of them had rental income, the filing shows.
The Republican, who represented Virginia Beach and parts of Norfolk, Hampton and the Eastern Shore, said she wont decide about running again for a few months. Drake lost a bitter fight to Democrat Glenn Nye.
Lampson, a Texas Democrat, found himself out of work after failing to win a second term in a conservative Republican district. He won the seat after former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay resigned. Lampson, 64, said hes been enjoying his time off “playing.”
Lampson, who formed the House Missing and Exploited Childrens Caucus, said hes working to help form a nonprofit group that will use high-tech tools to search for missing people. Lampson made fighting crimes against children one of his legislative priorities after Laura Kate Smither, 12, of Friendswood, Texas, went missing in 1997 and was later found murdered.
Add A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.