Smith Says He Was Never Bribed to Vote for Medicare Bill, but Issue Has Raised a Firestorm

Before a recent predawn vote on Medicare, fellow Republican lawmakers pleaded with Rep. Nick Smith to change his vote and support the bill. Was it just another case of political arm twisting - or an illegal bribe?

The exchanges that morning on the floor of the House, when a handful of votes could dictate the fate of the Medicare bill, have put the retiring Michigan congressman in the middle of an avalanche of charges and calls for an investigation.

Smith stood firm and voted against the bill, which passed by five votes on Nov. 22.

But shortly afterward, he leveled an explosive charge: Unnamed lawmakers and business interests had promised substantial amounts of money to his son's congressional campaign if he voted for the bill and had threatened to support other candidates if Smith didn't change his vote.

By Friday, Smith was backpedaling, saying his earlier suggestion that he had been bribed for money was "technically incorrect." But by that time, the Justice Department was considering an investigation.

And Republicans were mounting a defense, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich telling C-SPAN on Friday that Smith is "a disgruntled retiring member" who was the victim of nothing more than the usual treatment in a close vote.

"I just think this is one of those occasional Washington mountains that's being built out of less than a molehill," Gingrich said.

Smith, a fiscally conservative Republican and farmer from Addison, Mich., refused to support the bill because he said it would cost too much. Smith said he was subject to "intense" pressure from Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

In a column on his Web site the day after the vote, Smith said "other members and groups made offers of extensive financial campaign support" for his son, Brad, an attorney who is running for Smith's seat when Smith steps down next year. Neither Smith nor his son will reveal who spoke to Smith that morning.

Hastert's office has said Hastert only suggested that a vote for the Medicare bill would help Brad because it was a popular bill.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he said someone outside of Congress offered Brad "substantial and aggressive campaign support" and Smith assumed that meant financial support. But he said it was "technically incorrect" to say money was offered. Smith also said reports that Brad's campaign was offered $100,000 from an outside interest are untrue.

Smith insisted Republicans aren't pressuring him to back away from his previous comments.

Smith said he wrote the column because he was proud that Brad told him to vote against the Medicare bill despite the threats. He also hoped to offset damage to Brad.

"I was just telling it like it was, the truth in terms of the potential of other people hurting Brad's campaign," Smith said.

Smith said he doesn't think the incident meets the legal definition of bribery. Under federal law, it is illegal to directly or indirectly promise something of value to a public official in order to influence a vote.

"If bribery is saying 'Look, you're not going to get that bridge in your district unless you vote for this,' then I'm sure the Justice Department is going to have a full-time staff looking into this," he said. "There's just a lot of political bluster on the floor."

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is among those who has asked the Justice Department to investigate, along with a campaign finance watchdog group and the Democratic-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

GOP pulled no punches in struggle for Medicare bill

November 27, 2003

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.

Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

The bill providing prescription drug benefits under Medicare would have been easily defeated by Republicans save for the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history. Although President Bush had to be awakened to collect the last two votes, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Majority Whip Roy Blunt made it that close. ''DeLay the Hammer'' on Saturday morning was hammering fellow conservatives.

Last Friday night, Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania hosted a dinner at the Hunan restaurant on Capitol Hill for 30 Republicans opposed to the bill. They agreed on a scaled-down plan devised by Toomey and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. It would cover only seniors without private prescription drug insurance, while retaining the bill's authorization of private health savings accounts. First, they had to defeat their president and their congressional leadership.

They almost did. There were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to House members.

Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him.

Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a ''no'' vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more.

Feeney held firm against the bill. So did DeMint and Akin. And so did Nick Smith. A steadfast party regular, he has pioneered private Social Security accounts. But he could not swallow the unfunded liabilities in this Medicare bill. The 69-year-old former dairy farmer this week was still reeling from the threat to his son. ''It was absolutely too personal,'' he told me. Over the telephone from Michigan on Saturday, Brad Smith urged his father to vote his conscience.

However, the leadership was picking off Republican dissenters, including eight of 13 House members who signed a Sept. 17 letter authored by Toomey pledging to support only a Medicare bill very different from the measure on the floor Saturday. That raised the Republican total to 216, still two votes short.

The president took to the phone, but at least two Republicans turned him down. Finally, Bush talked Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona (a ninth defector from the Toomey letter) and Butch Otter of Idaho -- into voting ''yes.'' They were warned that if this measure failed, the much more liberal Democratic bill would be brought up and passed.

The conservative Club for Growth's Steve Moore, writing to the organization's directors and founders, said defeat of the Medicare bill ''would have been a shot across the bow at the Republican establishment that conservatives are sick of the spending splurge that is going on inside Washington these last few years.''

Hammering the conservatives to prevent that may have been only a short-term triumph.

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