from Politico
The accounting scandal now haunting the National Republican Congressional Committee was preceded by a series of decisions over the past decade to relax internal financial controls at the committee, according to numerous Republican sources familiar with the NRCC’s operations during those years.
Under Virginia Rep. Tom Davis and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who chaired the committee from 1999 until the end of 2006, the NRCC waived rules requiring the executive committee — made up of elected leaders and rank-and-file Republican lawmakers — to sign off on expenditures exceeding $10,000, merged the various department budgets into a single account and rolled back a prohibition on committee staff earning an income from outside companies.
These changes gave committee staffers more freedom to spend money quickly and react to a shifting political landscape during heated campaign battles, and House Republicans were able to claim larger majorities after the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections.
More after the click ...
My comment:
The net result? About what you'd expect. A couple of felony indictments. Just like the real world. I bet they still don't get it, though. Does the phrase "Culture of Corruption" ring a bell?
Josh Patashnik summed it up pretty well in The New Republic when he wrote"
"House Republicans can be accused of many things, but at least inconsistency isn't one of them: They adhere to the same low standards of ethics and competence in their own affairs that they expect of the federal government as a whole."
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