More bad news for Norm Coleman came out on Wednesday of last week, September 10th. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) a non-partisan, non-profit, watchdog ethics reform group just issued their annual "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" [reference] list and Norm Coleman has made the list. Among the ethics violations that the watchdog group cited for Norm Coleman were recent allegations of favorable lodging he accepted in violation of the Senate gifts rule.
For over a year now Senator Coleman has been accepting lodging from Jeff Larson, a Republican lobbyist, and chief executive of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul 2008 Host Committee, which just finished hosting the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. This scandal was broke back on June 28th by investigative journalists from the National Journal. They went on to discover that Norm Coleman was renting a Washington D.C. apartment from Mr. Larson for $600.00 per month. Moreover they discovered that despite this apparent below market rental rate, Norm Coleman had repeatedly missed rent and utility payments to Mr. Larson. Comparable rentals for the Capital Hill neighborhood were advertised in the $1,100 to $1,450 per month range and suggests that Norm Coleman was receiving a below market rental rate from Mr. Larson.
The report by CREW goes on to say that because lodging clearly falls within the Senate’s definition of "gift", Senator Coleman appears to have violated the Senate gifts rule which states that the permissible gift limit is nothing over $49.99. Norm Coleman's failure to pay the utility bills totaling $532.88 were in themselves well over the permissible gift limit. Questions were also raised about the fact that Mr. Larson's wife was an employee in Senator Coleman's office and paid a substantial salary of $101,218. Mr. Larson's relationship with Senator Coleman and the mutual financial benefits gained was enough to warrant an investigation request by CREW. On July 1, 2008, CREW filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics requesting an investigation into this matter and a response to this request is still pending.
An additional developing scandal for Norm Coleman is the recent revelation that he received $32,000 in campaign contributions from indicted Representative Ted Stevens and joined Ted Stevens and oil executives on luxury fishing trips to Alaska.
