Jim Drinkard has covered Washington politics and policy since 1981, when he came to the capital as a Midwestern regional reporter for The Associated Press. He has covered agriculture policy, the Iran- Contra scandal, the ethics case of former House Speaker Jim Wright, foreign policy, intelligence matters and the congressional leadership.
In 1993 he pioneered a beat focusing on lobbyists, interest groups, money and politics -- coverage that twice won reporting awards. He joined USA Today in 1998 to cover similar issues. He chronicled the record-breaking fundraising of the 2000 elections, the push to revamp the campaign finance system and the search already under way for loopholes in the new law that took effect this fall.
He is a graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina, and earned an M.A. degree in journalism at the University of Missouri. He is married and has two children.
Behind the Story: A Reporter's Notebook
Below are notes Jim provided us as background information on several articles he has written recently about accounting practices that were compiled for a case study on “Accounting Fraud.” Click here to view the case study.
The seeds of these stories were sown in the fall of 2001, with the collapse of the Houston-based energy trading company Enron. What seemed a breathtaking anomaly of corporate corruption soon became just part of a pattern of misconduct that also consumed Arthur Andersen, Qwest, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia and Dynegy. Reporters and editors wondered how Enron had been able to create the bogus books that made it look so profitable for so long. With colleague Greg Farrell, I delved into how the company and its chairman, Kenneth Lay, had played the Washington power game. There was plenty of material: legions of well-connected lobbyists, $5.9 million in political contributions over the previous decade and slick ad campaigns. What we found was that, in effect, the company bought itself a regulation-free zone in which to pursue its dubious deals.
So when Congress began to react, I was assigned to follow it. Corporate scandals and accounting regulation, normally a subject for the business pages, were rapidly becoming an issue in the 2002 congressional elections. Legislation originating in the Republican-controlled House would have imposed new requirements on the accounting industry, but critics called them ineffectual. As the calendar changed and the furor over Enron faded, the bill seemed likely to die of neglect -- until a second bombshell hit. WorldCom’s failure reignited interest, and the Senate wrote a far tougher bill to regulate accounting. President Bush, who had backed the weaker House version, endorsed the tougher Senate bill and signed it into law.
As a political reporter, I found the scenario illustrated several well-established truths of Washington life. One is that Congress as an institution is largely reactive. Actions are driven by headlines; remedies come as responses to crisis. In an election year, the phenomenon is magnified. Another was the influence of money and lobbyists in the capital. Many of the companies caught up in accounting scandals had been able to escape government oversight. For years, the accounting industry operated by policing itself through its own trade association, which in turn gave millions of dollars in campaign contributions to the city’s politicians. That system ended with the legislation chronicled here.
