Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has modified his “Names of the Dead” Web site, which is meant to catalog a list of people who have died for lack of health insurance, removing a link to his campaign Web site.
Republicans had been objecting that Grayson used the House floor to promote a site that contained link to his campaign site — and thus an avenue to donate to him — and also that he was using his personal money to run a site that in turn linked to his campaign.
Grayson’s office gave us this statement from the Congressman:
“There are no violations. Once again, the Republicans are trying to change the subject from what matters to what doesn’t matter. Why can’t they talk about the issues? In the hours since they started complaining about this, more than 100 people have died because they do not have health insurance. Let’s talk about saving lives, not about baseless complaints about violations that did not occur.”
NRCC spokesman Andy Seré put out this statement:
“While some questions remain unresolved, we’re pleased to see Alan Grayson finally acknowledge he committed an ethics violation. It’s just a shame that his ‘get on TV first, ask questions later’ attitude has once again embarrassed Central Floridians.”
As we’ve reported, the site has been beset by other problems, such as when people were submitting joke names that then went live on the site.
One of the Republican candidates seeking the nomination to go up against Grayson in 2010 filed an ethics complaint, but a TPM reader experienced with Congressional ethics rules tells us it probably won’t go anywhere:
The chances that the OCE will forward this complaint to the full ethics committee are exactly zero. (A) There isn’t a clear-cut violation because Grayson’s congressional web site and campaign web site aren’t directly linked to each other. The fact that another website links to both Grayson websites doesn’t violate House rules. (B) Even if there were a clear-cut violation the remedy would be a letter to Grayson reminding him of the rule regarding links between official and campaign web sites – no admonishment, no censure, no sanction at all. (C) The OCE isn’t obligated to act on complaints received from the general public and they won’t act on this one other than to decide not to pursue it as de minimis – at best.
Of course, Ms. Sullivan will now be able to run a 30-second ad saying that Rep. Grayson is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics and, really, that’s the point of this stupidity.
