By K. Daniel Glover, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Monday, Nov. 27, 2006

To voters in Florida's 23rd District, Democrat Alcee Hastings is simply their representative in the House. They first elected him by 59 percent of the vote in 1992 and subsequently have returned him to Congress in majorities ranging from 73 percent to 100 percent. He was just re-elected to an eighth term without opposition.

	Critics, both Democratic and GOP, say someone with Hastings' ethics record has no business chairing the intel committee.
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But to those outside Florida's 23rd who've heard of him, and especially to bloggers, Hastings is "the only member of Congress ever to have been impeached and removed from office as a federal judge," to quote from the "Almanac of American Politics."

The "Almanac" goes on to say this about his past: "Hastings was charged with conspiring with a friend to take a $150,000 bribe and give two convicted swindlers light sentences. A Miami jury acquitted Hastings in 1983, but the friend was convicted. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals called for impeachment in 1987 and referred the case to Congress. Hastings was impeached by the House by a vote of 413-3 and convicted by the Senate, 69-26."

Hastings' history as a judge is significant now because he is being considered for the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. Jane Harman of California is the ranking Democrat on that panel, but in a departure from tradition, may not be automatically elevated to the committee's top post in January.

That's because Nancy Pelosi, the newly elected House Speaker for the new, majority-Democratic Congress, reportedly is not fond of Harman, and is not eager to elevate her fellow Californian to the Intelligence chairmanship. Despite his impeachment and removal from the judiciary, Hastings has the important backing of the Congressional Black Caucus for his promotion.

The prospect of Hastings becoming chairman has prompted plenty of complaints in the blogosphere, even among Democrats. Stephen Kaus proclaimed Hastings "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" at The Huffington Post, and Justin Rood of TPMMuckraker did some thorough background reporting on the Hastings bribery case (go here, here and here).

Rood's employer, Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo, had this to say about the issue: "Given the centrality of intelligence work in our national policy debates today, the importance of secrecy in handling classified information, and how politicized and contentious intel debates have become, I don't see how you can have the chairman of the intel committee be someone about whom there is any serious question whether or not they accepted bribes as judges to subvert justice."

Marshall also suggested Rush Holt, D-N.J., as an alternative to both Harman and Hastings.

Blog criticism of Hastings has been persistent and harsh enough that he responded Nov. 20 by blasting "anonymous bloggers" in general and conservative Michelle Malkin in particular. "I hope that my fate is not determined by Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Michael Barone, [Matt] Drudge, anonymous bloggers, and other assorted misinformed fools," he wrote in a five-page letter to House Democratic colleagues.

The letter may have done more harm than good to Hastings' cause, however, because Malkin answered in kind with a post that labeled Hastings a "fool" and his letter to colleagues an "unhinged rant." She included plenty of background links on the Hastings bribery case and current criticisms of his leadership bid.

"It isn't just right-wingers objecting to the possibility of a convicted judge for sale chairing the House Intelligence Committee," she wrote. "In peacetime, Washington can chalk up Hastings' resurrection to business as usual. In wartime, Washington has no business doing business as usual."

-- K. Daniel Glover is a NationalJournal.com contributing writer and managing editor of National Journal's Technology Daily. His "Beltway Blogroll" blog is updated regularly. His email address is dglover@nationaljournal.com.

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