Reuters via Yahoo:

Ex-aide to Ney expected to plead guilty
By James Vicini and Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former top aide to Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty on Monday and agreed to cooperate in the corruption and influence-peddling investigation involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Ney's former chief of staff, Neil Volz, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and to violating the one-year ban on lobbying after leaving Ney's office in 2002 and joining Abramoff's lobbying firm.

"Guilty, your honor," Volz told U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle.

Abramoff and Tony Rudy and Michael Scanlon, two former aides to Texas Republican Rep. Tom DeLay, previously had pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in the investigation that has rattled top Republicans in Congress. DeLay, once one of the most powerful members of Congress, has stepped down from his post as Majority Leader.

Ney has been one of the Republican lawmakers whose activities have been investigated as part of the U.S. Justice Department's criminal probe. This marks the first time that one of his former aides has pleaded guilty.

Ney, who faces a tough re-election fight, has denied that he has ever done anything illegal, improper or unethical.

Democrats are trying to make corruption and unethical behavior by Republicans a major campaign issue. Ohio, in particular, has been a major focus of Democrats because of several close district races and a totally different corruption scandal that has engulfed Republicans.

TRIPS TO SCOTLAND, LAKE GEORGE

According to court documents, Volz while working for Ney

accepted tickets to sporting events, meals and drinks. Volz, Ney and others then performed official acts motivated in part by the gifts.

Then, as a lobbyist working in Abramoff's firm, Volz took part in the conspiracy to give various items to Ney. Among them were an all-expenses-paid golf trip to Scotland in 2002, a trip to Lake George in New York in 2003, regular food and drinks at Abramoff's restaurants and tickets to sporting events and concerts, the documents said.

"The purpose of the conspiracy was for defendant Volz and his co-conspirators to unjustly enrich themselves by corruptly receiving, while public officials, and providing, while lobbyists, a stream of things of value with the intent to influence and reward official acts and attempting to influence members of Congress in violation of the law," the documents said.

Volz paid for the two-night trip to Lake George for Ney and members of his staff in August 2003 and assured Ney that he would be reimbursed by Abramoff, according to the documents.

In exchange for the various items, Ney agreed "to take favorable official action and render other assistance" on behalf of the clients represented by Abramoff and Volz, according to the documents.

The documents said that in January 2000, with Ney's knowledge and permission, Volz traveled to the Northern Mariana Islands with Scanlon and others to assist them with their lobbying businesses.

Around May 21, 2001, and again with Ney's knowledge and permission, Volz solicited and accepted from Rudy four tickets to a luxury box suite for an upcoming local U2 concert, according to the documents.

Volz faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine although he could receive less than that depending on his cooperation with prosecutors.
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For the National page:

From the Missoulian:

Unidentified donors fund group backing ballot issues
By MIKE DENNISON of the Missoulian State Bureau
HELENA - A trio of Montana ballot measures, including one to limit state spending, has been bankrolled so far by a group that won't reveal its donors, campaign finance records show.

The group is Montanans in Action, which has spent about $49,000 to jump-start the campaigns and signature-gathering for Constitutional Initiatives 97 and 98 and Initiative 154.

CI-97 would cap state government spending, limiting it to the growth in the rate of inflation and state population. CI-98 would make it easier for people to attempt to recall judges. I-154 makes it harder for government to use “eminent domain” powers to condemn private property.

Supporters of the three measures are gathering signatures to attempt to qualify each for the November ballot.

Montanans in Action is what's known as a 501c4 nonprofit group, which does not have to publicly divulge its financial backers, said its executive director, Winifred rancher and political activist Trevis Butcher.

“It's an educational group,” Butcher said Tuesday. “It's working on all sorts of issues along these lines, especially private property rights.”

Butcher also is helping coordinate the campaigns for CI-97, CI-98 and I-154.

Butcher said he and others formed Montanans in Action early this year. Its financial supporters are people and organizations “who believe in responsible government and want to see citizens directly involved in the process,” he said.

Butcher said they don't wish to be known publicly, and that the law doesn't require their disclosure.

One of the chief opponents of CI-97 said Tuesday that using Montanans in Action to finance the initiative campaigns is an apparent effort to conceal who's behind them.

“Who are ‘Montanans in Action?' ” said Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, a union representing thousands of public employees. “We've been around forever; we're not a mystery to anybody. But when you say you're ‘Montanans in Action' and don't give any names, then what is it?”

MEA-MFT has been bankrolling the campaign against CI-97, using money from its membership dues, he said.

“It's not too hard to tell where our money's coming from, because it comes from our members,” Feaver said. Those members include school teachers, prison workers, college instructors and professors, and private health-care workers.

Montanans in Action has given $20,050 to the CI-97 campaign, or 87 percent of the campaign's money, and virtually all of the $29,500 for the campaigns of CI-98 and I-154. Individual Montanans have donated $2,000 to support CI-97, which is the spending-cap measure.

Most of the initiative campaigns' money has been spent on three items: legal fees, a signature-gathering consultant in Arizona, and repaying $25,500 in startup loans from Americans for Limited Government, an Illinois group supporting the measures.

Butcher said it's likely the campaigns will hire people to help collect signatures to place the three measures on the November ballot. They have until late June to gather and verify the signatures of registered voters to qualify the measures for the ballot.

CI-97 and CI-98 need about 44,600 signatures each to qualify for the ballot; I-154 needs half that amount.

Butcher also reported a personal “in-kind” donation of $21,000 to the three separate efforts, as time and office use he's donated to the cause. If some money is left over in campaign coffers later on, he said he may be reimbursed for his time, but that he's not counting on it.

MEA-MFT has contributed $20,000 in cash to Not in Montana-Citizens Against CI-97 and led the public campaign against the measure. It also has given “in-kind” contributions of staff time to the anti-CI-97 campaign.

Feaver said he believes much of the money backing CI-97 is coming from outside the state, because it's part of a national campaign by anti-government groups.

Similar spending-cap measures are being promoted in at least a half-dozen other states, he said: “We won't want whatever it is that is being sold in Maine, or Oregon, or Ohio or Oklahoma. This sounds like the same story, different state.”