Political Fail: Representative Maxine “In Hot” Waters:

“Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) will face a trial for her role in steering federal funds to a bank to which she is personally connected, the House ethics committee announced Monday”  August 2, 2010.

As previously argued here at Open Scandal, the Achilles heal of democracy is personal greed. The Recent buzz regarding Democratic Representative Maxine Waters, is another example of this sort of greed. Waters is currently under

Washington Post Online concisely outlines the issue surrounding Representative Waters:

“Waters is being investigated for her role in arranging meetings between Treasury Department officials and representatives of minority-owned banks, including OneUnited Bank. Waters’ husband, Sidney Williams, formerly served on the board of directors of OneUnited and continues to own stock in the company. OneUnited got $12.1 million in TARP funds after meetings that Waters helped to arrange, and Treasury officials have alleged that they never knew of her personal ties to the bank.”

While online sources vary in their reports of the depth of the ties between OneUnited and Water’s husband, most see him holding anywhere between a quarter and half million dollars with of the company’s stock. While further details will emerge about the actual involvement, it may be hard to prove that her ability to setup a single meeting was the only reason why OneUnited got TARP money.

In fact further research shows fellow Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts was in trouble earlier this year for attempting to aid OneUnited’s efforts to cozy up to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The Boston Business Journal reported in January of  2009:

“The tiny bank(One United) received the bailout money after gaining influential support from Massachusetts congressman and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. The funds came from the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.”

While one might see the Waters and Frank situation as a similar, the source of motivations of the two is much different. According to the Boston globe Representative Frank saw Water’s interest as less-than appropriate:

“Frank, who chairs the powerful Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that he advised Waters to let his staff handle any efforts to make OneUnited eligible for Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) assistance, since the bank was in his district. ”I said, look, it’s a Boston institution. You should stay out of it. It’s a legitimate constituency thing for me. You should stay away from this. It’s a legitimate thing for me to do, and you shouldn’t be involved.”

The trial Waters faces in front of the House Ethics committee will no doubt reveal the depth of the ties between Waters and OneUnited Bank, but most sources are seeing the Water’s scandal as a huge political fail.

Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080204084.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rep-maxine-waters-charged-ethics-violations/story?id=11307872

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/07/31/us_waters_ethics/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneUnited_Bank

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2010/08/frank_advised_w.html