Ooops, I accidentally made $1.8 million

It just sort of happened that way.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert denied Thursday that he pushed for federal funding for a proposed highway in northeastern Illinois so he and his wife could reap about $1.8 million from land deals near their home in Kendall County.

The Sunlight Foundation, a newly created group whose declared aim is to inform the public about what members of Congress do, has accused Hastert of not divulging connections between the $207 million earmark he won for a highway, the Prairie Parkway, and an investment he and his wife made in nearby land.

The Foundation says Hastert used an Illinois trust to invest in real estate near the proposed route of the Prairie Parkway, and notes that Hastert's 2005 financial disclosure form, released Thursday, makes no mention of the trust. Hastert lists several real estate transactions in the disclosure, all of which were done by the trust. Kendall County public records show no record of Hastert making the real estate sales he made public today; rather, they were all executed by the trust, the Foundation says.

However, Hastert disclosed the transactions on the annual personal financial statements members of Congress are required to file, the Chicago Sun Times reports. But Hastert did not take the extra steps called for in the House Ethics Manual and volunteer that he held land in a secret land trust called "Little Rock Trust," the newspaper says.

In defending himself, Hastert told The Associated Press the land in question was 5.5 miles from the proposed highway.

"So, it has nothing to do with the Prairie Parkway," the Yorkville Republican said. "I owned land and I sold it, like millions of people do every day."

Hastert attorney Randy Evans wrote to the foundation, calling its statements false, libelous and defamatory, and demanding that they be withdrawn and corrected.

Among Evans' criticisms was that the property Hastert purchased is adjacent to Hastert's home and is more than 5.5 miles from the Prairie Parkway corridor.

"This would be like complaining about a purchase in Alexandria, Virginia, based on renovations at the Capitol," in Washington, D.C., he said.

Really?

No, not really. Alexandria's population is 128,923, as estimated by the census bureau in 2003. It's area is only 15 square miles, giving it a population density of about 8,595 people per square mile.

Kendall County, Hastert's home, has a population of 79,514 (94.7 percent white, I'll bet you'd be surprised to learn). Kendall County has an area of 321 square miles, giving the county a population density of about 248 people per square mile. So to liken 5.5 miles in Kendall County to 5.5 miles in much denser and busier Alexandria, Va., is pretty much meaningless.

So is claiming that location is irrelevant to the value of real estate. Hastert and his defenders say the location of the land relative to the highway is irrelevant because the highway is 5.5 miles away from the land, implying that the highway is too far away to have any impact on the value of the real estate, and that land closer to the highway would be much more valuable.

Think about that. Would you want to live very close to a major highway, with its traffic, noise and pollution, or would you prefer to live a short distance away, far enough so that the noise, traffic and pollution don't impact your home, but close enough that highway access is just a convenient, leisurely 5.5 mile ride away, through a sparsely populated and probably beautiful prairie?

Hastert attorney Randy Evans would have you liken that ride to a 5.5-mile commute through the dense, big-city atmosphere between Alexandria and Washington, D.C. And in case Evans is unaware, the presence of the Capitol has already driven up real estate prices in Alexandria, so renovating it would have no effect on prices.

The prairie highway, on the other hand, is a new element in the region, not an existing one getting a facelift, so Evans' comparing it to the Capitol is a joke.

Oh, did I say 5.5 miles? Apparently I meant to say 3 miles.

Hastert business partner Dallas Ingemunson, a former Kendall County state's attorney, questioned the use of the 5.5 mile estimate, saying the distance was "probably less than three miles... as the crow flies." But he agreed with Hastert that the Prairie Parkway had nothing to do with their land deals.

The only interests Congressmen look out for are their own and those of their paying customers. They're not representatives of the people, they're professional agents, greedmongers who go to bat only for other greedmongers who pony up enough money to secure their services. And now that paperless touch-screen voting machines have been installed pretty much everywhere -- on the nickel of a bankrupt federal government, you and your "vote" are irrelevant.