Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
When freshman Rep. Harley Rouda (D-CA) grabbed the mic at a February hearing to extol the virtues of House Democrats’ new ethics reform bill, he was already in violation of a key provision of the bill designed to root out official conflicts of interest.
The bill, a sweeping piece of legislation given the prominent designation of H.R. 1, signifying the 116th Congress’ first official legislative act, would bar members of Congress from serving on the boards of for-profit entities. Rouda cosponsored the bill within a week of taking office in January. But his office acknowledged to PAY DIRT this week that Rouda himself maintained seats on four corporate boards until just this month.
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Apparently recognizing the disconnect between his official position and his private financial conduct, Rouda’s office says he resigned from three of those boards on March 8, the same day that he cast his vote in favor of the legislation, and “in accordance” with that vote. He stepped down from the fourth about a week earlier.
Rouda’s office filled PAY DIRT in on those details after a hectic back and forth this week. First, a spokesman claimed that he had resigned from all his board memberships. Then the spokesman said he’d been given “bad information,” and that the congressman still retained six board seats. He followed up once again to say that, in fact, Rouda stepped down from two of those positions in January, and an additional four this month.
Some of the companies themselves offered similarly disjointed responses. The chief marketing officer for online real-estate platform Realstir told PAY DIRT on Tuesday that Rouda remained on the company’s board, and that “as far as I am aware he has no intentions of leaving his Realstir board position.” The company’s CEO later called to say that the CMO did not have up-to-date information, and that Rouda had in fact resigned from the position on March 8.
A spokesperson for outdoor-apparel company Rocky Brands told PAY DIRT that Rouda left his position “after he was elected to office.” But the company’s website continues to list Rouda as a board member.
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