Toledo OH Blade
July 11, 2006
IT'S an old question but a fair one: How is it that long-time elected
officials frequently are able to end up with a significant amount of
accumulated wealth despite the modest salaries that come with their
government jobs?
If you believe aides to Dennis Hastert, speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, the 19-year route from humble legislator with less
than $300,000 in personal assets to political heavyweight worth more
than $6 million runs through a series of small but fortunate deals that
piggybacked on rapidly rising land values in his northern Illinois
district.
But a different path emerged - one of political influence - after Mr.
Hastert arranged federal funding for a hometown highway project, which
allowed him to make a multimillion-dollar killing on another land deal.
Last year, the speaker quietly earmarked $207 million in a federal
transportation bill for the Prairie Parkway, a controversial highway
project southwest of Chicago. Never mind that local officials hadn't
requested the money, or that a number of area residents oppose it as
contributing to suburban sprawl.
In December, four months after President Bush signed the $286 billion
transportation measure, Mr. Hastert had what the Chicago Tribune
referred to as his "biggest payday as a real estate investor," netting
$2 million from the sale of land he put together with the aid of some
partners. The property is a convenient three miles from one proposed
interchange on the freeway and five miles from another.
Critics have suggested that the speaker's earmark greatly enhanced the
value of his property, and research by the Tribune seems to back that
contention. And one of Mr. Hastert's partners is the Republican Party
chairman of the county where the project is located.
The Tribune reported that Mr. Hastert, whose wife was a school teacher,
never has made more than $212,100 a year and received no substantial
inheritances, yet managed over two decades to acquire land in Illinois,
Wisconsin, and Florida worth more than $6 million and a Capitol Hill
townhouse in Washington valued for tax purposes at $400,000. All this
while putting two children through college.
While such circumstantial evidence does not prove any impropriety - the
newspaper found nothing illegal - the latest deal carries the strong
stench of political influence.
Perhaps Mr. Hastert is a shrewd real estate investor, but the timing of
the $207 million highway earmark cannot be dismissed as mere good luck.
It's one thing for an elected official to make a fortune on his own,
but quite another to leverage private holdings with public money.
The House Ethics Committee should investigate the speaker's remarkable deal.