I’ve hired one of Washington, D.C.’s most respected advisers on congressional ethics issues to make sure that there are no conflicts with my official duties. I consulted with the Ethics Committee and received bipartisan guidance on potential conflicts and situations when I should not vote. The committee’s guidance was very clear — I represent a large constituency and it is my duty to represent them — through my vote unless my wife or I stand to benefit directly and financially because of a vote I cast, which simply is not the case with CAFTA.
To assert that just because my wife is a congresswoman in Guatemala there is automatically a conflict doesn’t make it the case. CAFTA is a regional trade agreement between several nations, not just one, affecting millions of people in seven different countries.
That’s a quaint way of looking at it, but a more realistic is that his wife is an official in a foreign government and hence, there is a conflict of interest in the family.
More bizarre is his insistence on maintaing his membership on the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere that oversees US-Guatemalan relations and certainly deals with issues of human rights. Zury Rios Montt (as her own web site identifies her) is a political supporter and member of a party founded by a man who was a genocidal dictator. How can anyone justify that relationship and his role in overseeing State Department operations in Guatemala?
Sounds like a flip-flop to me!
Please join other 11th CD constituents in asking Weller to keep his promise and recuse himself from the CAFTA vote. We also plan on showing up at his “office hours” and public meetings – should he have any public meetings, he’s been hiding out – for a redress of grievances concerning our congressman, his ethics and recent very bad decisions concerning his marriage.
The problem with Rep. Weller & the rest of the IL GOP Congressional delegation is the fantasy world in which they live. They refuse to listen to reason. Rep. Weller’s lawyers will give him a thumbs up — nothing wrong legally or ethically.
This is a conflict of interest. That’s not an ethics issue. It’s an issue of what’s best for his constituents & the rest of the IL public trust. It’s holding him to a higher standard. It’s accountability.