The 10 Worst Congressmen

5. THE KING OF PAYOFFS
JERRY LEWIS (R-CALIF.)

Aside from future jailbird William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, the sitting congressman most likely to be indicted is Lewis. As chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Lewis oversees nearly $900 billion a year in federal spending -- but anyone looking for a slice of that money has to deal with his best friend, lobbyist Bill Lowery. "If you want an earmark from Lewis, you have to hire Lowery," says Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "There's a direct exchange." In return for the business, Lowery and his clients made more than $480,000 in contributions to Lewis -- more than a third of the congressman's total campaign money since 2000. Lowery's firm, in turn, tripled its revenue to $5 million -- and his clients pocketed hundreds of millions in federal pork projects from Lewis.

The revolving door spins so fast between Lewis and Lowery that their offices operate almost as a single machine to swap taxpayer dollars for corporate donations. Jeffrey Shockey, who worked as a staffer for Lewis, left to join Lowery's firm -- and then returned to work for Lewis as deputy chief of staff of appropriations. As a parting gift, Lowery hired Shockey's wife as a lobbyist and gave him nearly $2 million -- a down payment on the firm's future earnings. Another Lewis staffer, now a Lowery partner, does such brisk business with her old boss that she's known as "K Street's Queen of Earmarks." Even Brent Wilkes -- the defense contractor whose payoffs sent Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to prison earlier this year -- has complained about the shakedown operation. "If you don't want to make the contributions," Wilkes recalls Lowery telling him, "you will get left behind." Wilkes also claimed that Lowery threatened to cut him off from Lewis and his lucrative earmarks unless he forked over $25,000 a month in lobbying fees.

Lewis, a former insurance salesman elected to Congress in 1978, has long tapped corporate interests for campaign cash: In one of his early races, all of his money came from just forty-three donors -- and twenty-two of them were lobbyists.

The FBI has issued ten subpoenas involving Lewis' current operation, and Lowery's firm has scurried to report more than $2 million in undisclosed income. The lobbyist, in fact, is an old hand at the abuse of public trust: A former congressman himself, Lowery lost his House seat in 1992 thanks to an ethics scandal. The man who beat him? None other than Duke Cunningham.

TIM DICKINSON