Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 22, 1992 TAG: 9203220238
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
U.S. Sen. John Warner often goes grocery shopping after dark - and he pays a volunteer staff member to come along, because Washington isn't safe at night.
Sixth District Rep. Jim Olin, D-Roanoke, keeps his own personal checkbook.
It is a habit that allowed him to show recently that he had $201.30 in the now-defunct House bank, when handwritten bank records for July 25, 1988, showed he had bounced a check for $100.
The bank's record-keeping was not all that good, and the congressman's office said there is no way to reconstruct what happened. But at least Olin had his own record.
Ninth District Rep. Rick Boucher balances his own checkbook, and it always comes out right - although apparently a $4,000 deposit he made into the House bank wasn't posted in time for him to avoid bouncing a check to his bank back home in Abingdon.
The above habits of congressmen and senators were discovered when they were asked if they balance their own checkbooks and if they ever have their staff members do trivial things - such as picking up their laundry.
Staff members are paid with tax money, and the rules in both Houses of Congress frown on using staff to do such non-congressional things.
The question was raised after Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, a former member of Congress, indicated he took household bills to his office, had a staff member prepare the checks and then signed them.
Such staff members are not "supposed to be spending substantial amounts of time" on such chores, said a spokeswoman for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
The spokeswoman, who didn't want her name used, said there may be times when a representative is due at an official function and someone might have to pick up a suit at the cleaners.
"I don't think anybody's going to call the police about that," she said.
As for Cheney's staff check-writer, the committee spokeswoman said, it didn't appear that he was using the aide as a full-time accountant. "I just don't see it as a big deal," she said.
She said she can't remember an instance of a congressman being reprimanded for misuse of staff members.
Spokespeople for Olin and Payne said the congressmen don't have staff members picking up the laundry or doing other chores.
Ellis Woodward from Payne's office said, however, that Payne does have an office manager who is authorized to write checks to meet situations that come up when the congressman is not in the office.
Kathy Miller, a spokeswoman for Olin, said the congressman doesn't ask his staff to do trivial chores.
"That's not his style," she said. Miller said someone occasionally brings Olin his lunch in the office when he's busy. But Olin always pays, she said.
"I always pick up my own laundry," Boucher said in a telephone interview.
The Democrat said that on "rare occasions," he calls on unpaid interns in the office to help him out when his time is tight.
The interns, he said, might pick up his car for him and go by his house when a repairman is due, "but I don't use paid staff for such purposes."
Democratic U.S. Sen. Charles Robb takes care of his own checkbook and doesn't send the staff on errands, spokeswoman Peggy Wilhide said.
"He does not ask the staff to do personal errands," Wilhide said. "I would be offended if he asked me to pick up his dry-cleaning."
Warner, responding to the questions by telephone, said he has three accounts - one for his farm in Northern Virginia, another for the house on the farm and another for Washington. The Republican senator said he has a secretary, hired by him, who handles the farm and house accounts.
"Seventy-five percent of personal work is done outside of the office" in the Senate, he said.
Warner said he writes a "good many" of the checks on the Washington account - for such things as his Senate restaurant bill and the rent on his Washington apartment.
But, he said, a personal Senate secretary writes some of the checks.
Warner said he personally pays volunteer staff members who perform duties outside Senate business.
He said that this week, he is expecting four guests for a tour of Washington. A volunteer will drive, Warner said, and be paid by him.
Warner, now a bachelor, said he sometimes takes a male volunteer grocery shopping with him in the evening, and the aide is always compensated.
by CNB