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- <text>
- <title>
- (1980) Button Time
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1980 Highlights
- </history>
- <link 07671>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- October 13, 1980
- NATION
- Button Time
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>The House expels Myers
- </p>
- <p> Ever since throwing out two Confederate members as traitors
- in 1861, the House of Representatives has taken a tolerant view
- of rascality in its ranks. Only rarely has the House taken formal
- notice of a colleague's misdeeds--and then, at worst, it has
- merely censured the offender verbally or, in a few cases,
- stripped him of seniority and committee chairmanships. This
- fraternal forbearance stemmed partly from the Representatives'
- clubby regard for one another and partly from their belief that
- in a democracy, voters have the right to be represented by
- whomever they wish--even a crook. The era of tolerance
- apparently ended last week.
- </p>
- <p> At issue was the fate of Pennsylvania Congressman Michael
- ("Ozzie") Myers, 37, who had been captured on FBI video tape
- accepting $50,000 from an agent posing as the representative of
- a fictitious Arab sheik. Myers was heard promising in return
- to sponsor special legislation that would enable the sheik to
- settle in the U.S. The tapes had been used by the Justice
- Department to convict Myers in August of bribery in the first
- of its series of ABSCAM prosecutions involving six Congressmen.
- (A U.S. appeals court ruled last week that the ABSCAM tapes
- introduced in evidence in the Myers case could be copied and
- broadcast by television stations, but granted time for Myers'
- attorneys to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.) Said
- Myers at the time of his conviction: "The jury was confused.
- I may be guilty of being an ass, but I have done nothing
- criminal."
- </p>
- <p> But the members of the House Ethics Committee, as well as
- other Representatives who watched the tapes, could find no
- innocent explanation for what they saw and no reason to delay
- their vote on Myers until after his appeal of the conviction is
- completed.
- </p>
- <p> In the four-hour debate before crowded galleries, Ethics
- Committee Chairman Charles Bennett of Florida urged that Myers
- be expelled because "the integrity of the House of
- Representatives is at stake." Argued New York Democrat Jonathan
- Bingham: "It is immaterial whether or not there has been a
- final conviction. He was selling his services for a substantial
- sum of money. Myers has brought shame on himself and on this
- House...To take any lesser action than expulsion would, I'm
- afraid, be further proof to our disillusioned young people that
- Congress protects its own and condones influence peddling."
- </p>
- <p> Wearing a funereal black suit and speaking from the well of
- the chamber, Myers did not deny taking the money. Said he: "I owe
- this House an apology for my action." But he insisted that
- accepting the money was "strictly play-acting" because he never
- intended to do anything in return. He complained: "I was set up
- from the word go." In one meeting with the sheik's intermediary,
- Myers said, "I was intoxicated. I was drinking FBI bourbon."
- Myers, a former longshoreman, contended that he was not used to
- hard liquor. Turning bitter, he charged that "I was not given a
- fair trial" by the House, and accused the members of "lynching"
- him. Protesting that "I know now what it feels like to sit on
- death row," Myers warned the members that their votes to expel
- him would have the same effect as "hitting the button if I were
- strapped into an electric chair." Few legislators were moved. The
- vote to expel Myers was 376 to 30.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-