WASHINGTON D.C.—Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has regularly accused the Republicans in the House of displaying "a culture of corruption." Yet the critical vote to get the House version of the health bill out of the House, demonstrates that Speaker Pelosi not only likes corruption, she counts on it. Remember her middle name because it figures in the proof.

On November 7, at 11:15 p.m. House bill 3962 passed by a vote of 220-215. Votes in favor of that bill included the following: Norm Dicks (D-Wash), Jane Harman (D-Cal), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Alan Mollohan (D-WVa), Jim Moran (D-Va), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Laura Richardson (D-Cal) and Peter Visclosky (D-Ind). If just three had voted against the bill, or had not been in the House to vote for it, the bill would almost certainly have failed.

Why that curious comment about not being in the House? A staffer for the House Ethics Committee put an internal document on a home computer with file sharing capacities. As a result, the complete list of Members of Congress under ethics investigations escaped into the press. These yes votes on the health bill were provided by Members who might have been expelled, had their possible ethics violations had been promptly and adequately examined, decided and acted upon.

Now, who has the power with a wave of her hand, to speed up or slow down the ethics investigation of any Member of the House? Why, that would be the ultimate power, Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. She’s been scrambling all this week to engineer the last few votes for passage.

Who would you expect to be the most reliable vote for the House bill, regardless of its contents, and regardless of whether the Member has read the bill? Logically, that reliable vote would come from a Representative who’s grateful to still be in the House, because the Speaker has so far saved him/her from an ethics violation.

Is the drive to success, regardless of ethics, logic, or even criminal violations, a new style for Nancy Pelosi? I grew up in Baltimore, and for a brief time lived next door to Nancy D’Alesandro. She was the daughter of Tommy D’Alesandro, Jr., then the corrupt Mayor of Baltimore.

To be sure, Tommy, Jr., never got charged with any crimes. But it was no secret that his political machine was a cash and carry operation whose sole criterion was victory at the polls and then victory on every vote on every issue. When Tommy, III, came along and became Mayor, he was charged with political corruption, along with a close ally, City Councilman Mimi DiPietro. Just before their trial was to begin, the essential witness against them disappeared.

The elected State’s Attorney then went into court and dismissed the charges for "lack of evidence." The missing witness then promptly surfaced in a Las Vegas casino, one which may have had mob connections. Actually, the charges against the Councilman weren’t finally dismissed until 1971, when I brought it up in a news story. No one ever said that the D’Alesandro Machine left any of its supporters "twisting in the wind." Loyalty was absolute, but like the drive for victory it was free of such minor concerns as ethics or legality.

Having used such tactics once, one should expect that Speaker Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi will continue use such tactics on close votes in the House, as long has she has enough grateful Democrats to work on. Oh, and expect the ethics charges for a corporate-paid trip to the Carribean by five Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to be dismissed shortly.

It seems that the person assigned to investigate that particular charge is Ethics Committee Member, G.K. Butterfield, (D-NC) who has two advantages. First, he is a fellow member of the Congressional Black Caucus. And, it happens that he went on the same corporate junket the previous year. Could Speaker Pelosi possibly have suggested to the Committee Chairmen that he pick Rep. Butterfield for this investigation?

The bottom line is clear: Speaker Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi counts on corruption to get the votes she wants. She will likely continue to do that as long as she has the opportunity.

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