And Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Downton Abbey) is resigning from the House.
The 33-year-old Republican has been dogged by questions about his spending of taxpayer and campaign dollars. On Monday afternoon, POLITICO posed a lengthy set of questions about charging the government and his campaign tens of thousands of dollars in questionable mileage reimbursements.
“Today, I am announcing my resignation as a Member of the United States House of Representatives effective March 31,” Schock said in a statement. “I do this with a heavy heart. Serving the people of the 18th District is the highest and greatest honor I have had in my life. I thank them for their faith in electing me and letting me represent their interests in Washington. I have given them my all over the last six years. I have traveled to all corners of the District to meet with the people I’ve been fortunate to be able to call my friends and neighbors.”
“But the constant questions over the last six weeks have proven a great distraction that has made it too difficultfor me to serve the people of the 18th District with the high standards that they deserve and which I have set for myself. I have always sought to do what’s best for my constituents and I thank them for the opportunity to serve,” he said in a statement.
Somehow I don’t think Republicans will have too much trouble finding a replacement for him, Peoria’s district voted 61% for Romney in 2012, and Schock himself got nearly 75% of the vote in 2014.
But still, the guy was clearly crooked and he’s out of Congress at the end of the month.
burnspbesq
Given that the district has a cook rating of around R+10 (IIRC), the next person is likely to be even worse.
TaMara (BHF)
That’s hysterical. Bad Horse is originally from Peoria and we were just discussing Schock last night and how his popularity was declining there. You can be a creepy republican, that the norm, but you can’t embarrass your hometown. He was embarrassing the locals.
piratedan
the dumb sonofabitch got caught, funny how the party of family values thinks its more of a heinous crime to be stupid about your grift than it does about the family… unless we’re simply wrong about “family values” being nothing more than a tribal euphemism for rich white people.
boatboy_srq
Resigning before the ethics complaint is filed. And with all “the constant questions over the last six weeks” still unanswered. How noble.
Germy Shoemangler
I took a peek at his twitter page. His latest post is about helping on a chow line. The comments were all “you dishonest fuck, you show up for a photo op then vote to cut their funding.”
He was also criticized for condescendingly calling it a chow line.
rikyrah
What a clown. Surprised he resigned.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I’m still schocked that he resigned so quickly. That’s not part of the standard Republican playbook in these situations, ie Vitter, et al.
geg6
@TaMara (BHF):
Yup.
philpm
Schock has signed his death warrant as a Republican since he resigned instead of fighting back.
Bobby B.
Will not affect Republicans’ power. Downstate rural Illinoisers are dumber than shit. ( There I said it, come and get me).My father lives in the Chicago area and when we talk I get a bellyful of news.
Fester Addams
He will be missed–by the snark-mob over at Wonkette!
Amir Khalid
This guy was a Representative for, what, ten weeks? These young politicians flame out so quickly.
raven
@TaMara (BHF): Like the Pekin Chinks?
Brachiator
Let’s cue up the “Schock to the System” jokes. What a dope. He left a clear audit trail as he was trying to fake his mileage, and whines about causing a distraction?
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Oh noez. I thought he was much more
stupidstubborn than that. It was gonna be an interesting ethics affair.Calouste
@rikyrah:
I suppose something Schocking will come in the news shortly that we haven’t heard about yet. Take your bets on it either being drug use or an official outing.
pseudonymous in nc
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
The papers that ran the stories told him what was going to go up on Tuesday?
He can now spend more time with his personal photographer.
Calouste
@Amir Khalid: He was actually first elected in 2008.
Jack the Second
What will happen to his office furnishings? Will he get to take them home, or will they be inherited by the next person to use that office (until they remodel)?
pseudonymous in nc
@Amir Khalid:
Six years. He was 27 when he was elected. He became part of the GOP House leadership in January and got his fabulous office then.
Bex
@raven: They’re the Dragons now.
srv
Well, pummeling a closeted Republican who watches Masterpiece Theater will certainly gives us a better replacement. Thx, liberals.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Calouste: Is it too much to hope for both? Like his MDMA dealer is an underage boy toy who had a dual role for the Schockster?
mdblanche
And Downton Abbey fails the “Will it play in Peoria?” test.
Between Schock and Dolce and Gabbana it’s been a bad few days for self-hating gay people with overly expensive tastes.
Tractarian
@Jack the Second:
He’ll sell them to pay for his legal defense.
Then the prosecutor will add “selling government-owned property for personal gain” to the indictment.
Zandar
@Jack the Second: My guess is the General Services Administration will hold them for government use.
For what use that is, I dunno. But it’s Uncle Sam’s now.
The Blog Dahlia
I gotta say, I did not expect that.
DCrefugee
One down, 244 to go…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Repubilcans in disarray! A House on fire! Boehner loses control!
Calouste
@srv: The writer of Downton Abbey sits in the House of Lords for the Conservatives, and that is noticeable in the series. Me suspects that Schock wasn’t as much of a fan of the series for its acting, as how it showed how the world should be ordered.
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
Oh, I see. So it was six years and ten weeks. But how recent was the Downton Abbey-style office? Since that was not remarked upon before, it must have been new to this term, right?
Calouste
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): As far as I know, no one has suggested Schock has any involvement with under age boys, but according to Wonkette he does have a “personal photographer” called Jonathon, who happens to be married.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wait, since when did Boehner have any control to lose?
philpm
@srv: Really? This guy was a slow-motion scandal in action, and you’re sad that all this bad news has forced his hand? The Dems may not take over the seat, but there’s at least one less openly crooked Repub in the House now.
srv
@Calouste: I, for one, certainly love that Democrat in House of Cards that wants to bust unions, slash SS, Medicare, Medicaid and rage about entitlements every episode.
Finally, we have some Real American writers in Holllywood. Best of all, liberals lap it up. Just shows how programmable they are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
When I first saw this I thought it involved dollars, not miles,
but the report does say he basically bilked the gov’t YOUR TAX DOLLARS for several thousand. I wonder if this could actually lead to jail time?
NorthLeft12
I stayed in Peoria for a couple of nights back in the 90s. Not by choice.
Really did not like it, but I was working and did not have a chance to discover the finer establishments. Uhhh are there any finer establishments?
It did not help that the coworker with me at the time was addicted to Appleby’s/TGIF/Denny’s and places like that.
TaMara (BHF)
@raven: That went right over my head. ;-)
Jay C
Puns aside, this actually is pretty shocking: somebody must have uncovered a significant amount of unwaveable-away dirt on Congressman Downton’s finances; the usual response one would expect would be self-righteous defiance and/or blame-shifting (a sinister plot by President Obama and Nancy Pelosi!), coupled with frantic backroom efforts to juice Congress’s “ethics” investigators into letting his crap slide.
Good riddance, anyway: don;t let the gold-plated doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out, Aaron…
Kay
@srv:
I agree. My son told me not to watch it. He said “you will hate it”. Which of course made me watch it.
It’s perfect too because there’s no accountability for Republicans. They’re decorative. It’s 100% up to Democrats to buck the mighty labor unions and save markets! If they could just stop being so beholden to “interest groups” we could get this country moving again!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
i’ve never had a job where I got reimbursed for mileage. This looks to be about 45+ cents a mile or so. Is that pretty standard?
RaflW
I’m afraid Peter Sagal is probably correct. The “personal photographer” will get dumped now for someone with a bit more free cash flow available.
raven
@Bex: I know.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s not unreasonable. For people who can deduct mileage costs from their taxes, the IRS says:
scav
It’s rather a pick your favorite all-you-can-eat buffet that’s tumbling out. Real-estate deals and donors, the foreign vacations and smoozing (with social media self-indulgent flash) with dodgy billing en plus, the redecorating elan (also with dodgy billing), the missing milage on car odometers, the extra milage on private planes (also with dodgy billing and a social media tie-in). Piñata Buffet.
mtiffany
Shorter Schock: “I’m pretty sure someone snapped some shots of me getting plowed by my ‘photographer’ on a balcony during one of my trips on the taxpayers’ dime.”
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
IRS rate is 56c/mile
(As I tweeted to Josh just a minute or two before he posted that. Ah well, anyone could have done the math. Except Schock, it seems. He failed at embezzlement math.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@RaflW: ah, thanks. Math was never my strong suit
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: IRS mileage rate was 56 cents per mile in 2014, 57.5 cents per mile in 2015, so yes, Schock allegedly trying to defraud the government of 50 large looks correct. Maybe his defense will be that he fiddled with the odometer before he sold the car, might carry a lesser penalty.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’re on a tiered thingy. If renting a car is cheaper you get 25 per, if driving your own is cheaper you get 50 cents per.
Jewish Steel
My garbage Rep. Now he can dedicate all his energies to Grindr.
@Bobby B.: No argument.
MattF
One suspects that Schock really didn’t want to face formal proceedings by the Ethics Committee. For, y’know, whatever. Really really. Plus whatever additional media reporting was coming.
RaflW
@srv: I think getting rid of a closet case who votes against LGBT equality and, much more importantly, who happens to be blatantly embezzling tax dollars is a legitimate target for removal. Do you not?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Federal mileage reimbursement rate is USD 0.575/mile, for businesses and government employees. If a government car is available and the employee uses a personal vehicle anyway, it’s about half that rate.
So overbilling 90K miles is some real money. As noted by several others previously.
Glenn I
But he’s so pretty!
Roger Moore
@philpm:
Openly.
Kay
@srv:
The first scene I saw was where the wealthy white DC Democrats crossed the street from a charity fundraiser and handed left-over food and beer to the (mostly) African American teachers who were on strike. The teachers (of course) were so grateful for the food and beer they made up with the Democrats!
Jesus. I can’t wait for next season, where the Democrats pay poor people to vote!
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I wish I had been so clear!
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I meant that at Josh, who conveniently tweeted his $50K number about 90 second after I tweeted the numbers to him.
Scandalous uncredited use? Maybe. But I really, really don’t care because “anyone can do the math.”
MomSense
@dmsilev:
Beginning Jan 1, 2015 the mileage reimbursement rate is 57.5 c/mile. 14c/mile for charitable organizations.
Tripod
Somebody wanted this clown gone, and lit him up nuclear style.
The OR campaign was ruthless and relentless.
Who and why is still up in the air……
Jewish Steel
@NorthLeft12: I live 30 miles away from Peoria and I’ve been there maybe 6 times in 20+ years. It is a major snooze.
RaflW
So, fun as it is to mock Schock, is the a serious contender among Peoria-area Dems? Any way us BJers could give said contestant a moneybomb?
gratuitous
Okay, Schock’s district is +10 R. Is there any reason that a decent Democratic candidate can’t be scrounged up for the special replacement election? Surely Mr. Schock’s antics can’t have left a good taste in the district’s collective mouth. Why not see if the seat can be flipped? Maybe the voters would like a chance to teach the Republican pooh-bahs a little lesson about taking them for granted?
raven
@Jewish Steel: Ever been to the Ringside Tap in Havana?
Mary G
Another Republican “rising star” bites the dust. Ha ha, as Nelson would say. Now, jail time for Aaron, who should be very popular there.
Jewish Steel
@raven: I have not. It appears nowhere on the internet too. Maybe it’s not there anymore?
Jewish Steel
@burnspbesq:
This is true. The only enjoyment is schadenfreude. I’m not sure if the D’s even ran anyone against him for a couple of those cycles.
Calouste
@Mary G: Ben Carson is going to use Schock as proof of his statement that men who go to prison come out gay.
boatboy_srq
@srv: Closeted Republican who watches BBC America on cable while voting to shred the CPB budget because Soshulist Indoctrination, more like. Not a loss there, though unlikely to change with the next holder of that office.
scav
@raven: One has to go all the way to Havana? I’ve at least been through Cuba (not to mention Kingston Mines, Banner, et al but that’s less amusing in context). There were places to stop?
RaflW
So Ray LaHood was from IL-18. One of the last of the decent gentlemen Republicans.
Looks like the district has been heavily R for a long time. Bummer. Still could be fun to throw a few bucks at a Dem to make things lively for a bit.
raven
@Jewish Steel: yea I just looked too. We’d drive from Champaign to Keokuk, IA to fish and camp on the big river. Sane as we were we wouldn’t drink till we got to Havana and had a burger at the Ringside. They used to have fights there and back in the day they had a life size poster of Bobby Douglas on the wall. Needless to say this was a LONG time ago. These guys were quite the deal back then
Quaaludes Again – Pork & The Havana Ducks Live!
Jewish Steel
@raven: Love it. Nice pedal steel. I’ll have to ask some of the old timers if they ever played a show with this group.
raven
@Jewish Steel: This is better, my old buddy Dr Suess from the All Star Frogs singin with him. This is the music we got into when that goddamn disco shit hit. Wasn’t far from Garcia, Old and in the Way and the New Riders.
nellcote
So does he get the same treatment as Jessie Jackson Jr AKA jail time?
Jewish Steel
@raven: “Pork” is a lefty!
srv
@boatboy_srq: Maybe they can get a real Illinois Nazi.
raven
@Jewish Steel: was
Doug r
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: he obviously drove half the mileage backwards
raven
@Jewish Steel: Ask your buddies if they knew the Frogs.
trollhattan
@raven:
Found a pristine “Old and In the Way” LP in the used racks a few years back. Doubt Aaron Shock would like them, but fuck him.
Jewish Steel
@raven: Great photos. Take me back to the 70’s, time machine. The 2010’s are bullshit.
raven
@trollhattan: They were spectacular. I saw Rowan and Tony Rice here a while back.
Damn, check this.
Mike in NC
I read that they deliberately made the Kevin Spacey character on ‘House of Cards’ a Dem because if they hadn’t they usual suspects would have screamed bloody murder 24/7 and probably launched a campaign for people to boycott Netflix.
raven
@Jewish Steel: Yea, I didn’t know that Perrino and Kleg were dead tillI looked at that. Bums me out.
raven
@Jewish Steel: Not to beat a dead horse but this blog is run by a woman from Central Illinois who went to LA and knew a ton of music people and then went back to C-U. The pages on Champaign music history are as good as I have seen.
Elizabelle
@Mike in NC: I wonder if House of Cards is in any way responsible for the “both sides do it” you hear from the uninformed? A shame they are laying the other party’s political ills at Democrats’ feet.
Have not seen the show and may not bother to watch …
Another Holocene Human
Schock resigning is proof that journalism DOES matter.
If you care too, I’m going to repeat my entreaty to donate to the Arkansas Times’ investigation following up on Justin Harris, rehoming and child welfare in Arkansas. I gave because I fear for these children. I have the link this time:
https://www.ioby.org/project/beyond-rehoming-investigating-arkansass-child-welfare-system
Please read the pitch. They are a very small organization (and they’ve pissed off a lot of VSPs in AR).
trollhattan
@raven:
Great PHC performance. I think I saw Rowan back in the day with the Free Mexican Air Force (nobody can prove I didn’t!) and saw Rice several times as part of the David Grisman Quintet. He always attracted impossibly good talent to that group; even saw Stephane Grappelli tour with them.
cmorenc
The GOP will easily find a cleverer sociopath to replace Schock, either one who is much better at keeping his avaricious tracks covered, or else someone who is already such an accomplished Glibertarian producer that he can focus entirely on sociopathic policy rather than sociopathic acquisitiveness.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, claiming reimbursement for 90,000 nonexistent miles.
And having his office spend $75,000 on a 2015 Tahoe, that is registered to Schock, personally? Is it possible to spend that much on an SUV? (Google says prices start at $46,000…)
What? Does it have a bathtub and its own silver service?
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/aaron-schock-resigns-116153.html#ixzz3Ufx2KGEP
What else are they going to find when they comb through their former congresscritter’s expense records?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Question of the day, I think. A quick wiki review suggests Jackson used campaign funds and went to jail. That mileage money came right from teh government, and there are a lot of questions about donor money, some hinkey deals with real estate in Peoria, et cetera.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle: As to “can you spend that much?” yeah, you can option the holy hell out of those things. This guy sounds really, truly self-screwed. Pity.
divF
@raven:
I was doing a random walk through youtube last night and listened to multiple covers of “Rock Salt and Nails”, from the mid 1970s, including J.D. Crowe and the New South, and (of course) Rosalie Sorrels.
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
He’s so dishonest. He knows better. DHS has such narrow tools at their disposal they have to talk like this. They don’t have the kind of discretionary power a prosecutor or a court has. It’s all by rule, but that isn’t to expand their power, it’s to narrow it. He knows perfectly well the prosecutor is the attorney for the agency and “abandonment” goes no where without a court. His repeating this recitation of what DHS “threatened” him with is complete and utter bullshit. 99% of the time they have no choice how they classify a case, but that doesn’t mean anything real without much more.
Alex S.
@srv:
As far as I know, it wasn’t even the liberals who chased this story. Most of the work was done by Politico. Maybe his replacement will be a disciple of the Koch brothers?
Shana
@raven: What a terrific site for Champaign-Urbana music. I’ve just scanned a bit of it and lots of it seems to be from before my time 1977-82. What I remember most, with fondest memories, is Mabel’s and the Vertebrats, and Larry Grossman’s History of Rock and Roll class. Truly another fertile period of music for the town. Ahh.
gogol's wife
I wish poor Downton Abbey weren’t sullied by being associated with this guy.
Just One More Canuck
@philpm: trolls gotta troll
Villago Delenda Est
I don’t think the resignation will end this. The mileage discrepancy is just the foot in the door…every aspect of this guy’s financial life are about to be exposed, and more shit is going to be discovered.
Kerry Reid
As a friend of mine described him, Aaron Schock is the GOP’s answer to Dan Rostenkowski — only a thousand times more fabulous!
raven
@Shana: Cool, glad you like it. I was part of the Record Service and their assorted offspring like Earthworks.
Queensbridge
@Kay: Kay, that was a really repulsive episode, where they not only crossed a picket line but bought off the (mostly African American) picketers with barbecue. I thought, “really?” But turns out that Netflix hired Jim Kessler, a Democrat founder of Third Way, as a script advisor. Kessler and co-founder Jim Cowan attacked Elizabeth Warren and the progressive wing of the party in the Wall St Journal and, I’m sure, believe in all the platform: cutting entitlements, curbing unions and the rest. The question is since the show has these positions being espoused by a sociopath is it actually advancing a progressive agenda.
Origuy
@raven: I remember Starcastle and Head East. Didn’t follow many of the other local bands. There was also a jazz group called the Memphis Nighthawks that put out an LP, that I still have.
Tree With Water
One door closes and another opens. Think of the fantastic career in interior design that awaits the Schockster.
What about John McCain? On inauguration day, 2009, he had his old office gutted and replaced with an exact replica of the oval office. Where Kennedy once had his PT 109 coconut as his desk ornament, McCain has mangled models of every jet he ever crashed, from the one he crashed on the way to a football game, to the last jet he lost over Hanoi. Or so I heard.
RSA
From the article; this made me laugh:
“Therefore.” Right, no one except a lawyer can know these sorts of things. Ethics and such.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
When I worked for the Canadian Consulate General we were reimbursed at right around 43-45 cents/mile, and the GoC was pretty harmonized with the US on things like per dimes and mileage.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike in NC:
I have never seen the HBO version, but I love the original British version with Ian Richardson. In that one, the Francis Urquhart character was a member of the Conservative Party. Interesting that they made the change in the translation to the U.S.
Ben
@RaflW:
DFTT
Ben
@gratuitous:
The last time the district voted for a Democrat was 1914. Way more shit would need to come out on Schock before it has a chance of flipping.
It looks like LaHood’s son, a State Senator, is the favorite to win the special election. He’s way more conservative than his father, but hopefully won’t be as awful as Schock.
gocart mozart
@RaflW:
Son Darren LaHood, State Sen. is running in the special election. I knew him in 1995. Decent guy, last of the moderate Republicans.
AxelFoley
@RaflW:
Forget it, RaflW. It’s srv.
I, for one, am schocked–SCHOCKED–there’s ethics violations going on in the 18th District.
AxelFoley
@nellcote:
BOOM!