As you likely know, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted yesterday to an extramarital affair, and has since resigned from his leadership position with the Senate Republican Conference. On its face, the scandal is bad enough for the Ensign: he admitted to an affair with the wife of one of his staffers. As Donny wrote earlier, Ensign’s chances of advancing within the Republican Party appear to be slim.
But there’s more to the story than the affair. Several reports surfaced today regarding the salary Ensign paid Douglas Hampton (the staffer whose wife was involved in the affair). Our colleague Paul Blumenthal delved deeper into the money angle at the Sunlight Foundation blog, highlighting some of the problems with Senate salary disclosures. He also spent some time updating the OpenCongress Wiki profile of Ensign about the scandal.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on the situation, but if you see something that we’ve missed you can always add the information yourself through the OpenCongress Wiki.
More on the Ensign scandal
As you likely know, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted yesterday to an extramarital affair, and has since resigned from his leadership position with the Senate Republican Conference. On its face, the scandal is bad enough for the Ensign: he admitted to an affair with the wife of one of his staffers. As Donny wrote earlier, Ensign’s chances of advancing within the Republican Party appear to be slim.
But there’s more to the story than the affair. Several reports surfaced today regarding the salary Ensign paid Douglas Hampton (the staffer whose wife was involved in the affair). Our colleague Paul Blumenthal delved deeper into the money angle at the Sunlight Foundation blog, highlighting some of the problems with Senate salary disclosures. He also spent some time updating the OpenCongress Wiki profile of Ensign about the scandal.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on the situation, but if you see something that we’ve missed you can always add the information yourself through the OpenCongress Wiki.
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