Can This Elephant Be Cleaned Up?

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But Boehner is no babe in the woods. He was one of Newt Gingrich's closest allies in bringing Republicans to power in 1994. When they took control of the House in 1995 after 40 years of Democratic rule, Boehner, as the House conference chairman, the No. 4 leadership position, was put in charge of building coalitions with business groups. He ran a meeting every Thursday of more than a dozen top business lobbyists in Washington. The relationship was mutually beneficial: House Republicans pushed through pro-business legislation, while the business groups provided campaign cash and grass-roots support to get bills passed. Boehner, who was part of the so-called Gang of Seven that had attacked Democrats for overdrafts from the House bank in the early 1990s, quickly became less known for his reform actions than for his closeness to lobbyists. He famously handed out campaign donations in the form of checks from tobacco lobbyists to members on the floor of the House in 1995. He now says it was a mistake he regrets. Boehner is best known for leading the House push on No Child Left Behind, the program championed by Bush that makes public schools accountable for student performance.

Blunt, former president of Southwest Baptist University, a small school in Missouri, has risen quickly through the leadership ranks since he entered the House in 1997. His close alliance with DeLay helped his ascent, though their relations have frayed in recent years as Blunt started to establish his own power base. As a House leader, he signed a letter, at the request of another member, opposing the construction of a casino in Louisiana that might have competed with a pair of casinos run by two Indian tribes represented by Abramoff. But the lobbyist favor that continues to dog Blunt is much closer to home. In the fall of 2002, Blunt infuriated House Republicans by trying to insert into a Homeland Security bill a provision that would have increased penalties on the sale of stolen cigarettes. The provision was strongly backed by Philip Morris, and Blunt was at the time dating Abigail Perlman, now his wife, who is a lobbyist for Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris. A Blunt aide denied that the Congressman was working at the direction of lobbyists.

Shadegg has the strongest reform credentials of the three contenders. He entered Congress in the famous class of 1994, which campaigned on a pledge to reform Washington after years of Democratic rule. He once headed the caucus of the House's most conservative members of Congress and often angered Republican congressional leaders by opposing bills that included pork-barrel projects that would increase the deficit.