At the height of the scandal involving Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) led the charge against the limousine company that ferried the California Republican around, calling for an investigation of the firm’s contract with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Now Thompson is taking the same side as Shirlington Limousine, complaining to DHS that the process used to strip Shirlington of its contract with the department may have violated laws steering contracts to businesses located in poor areas.
{mosads}In an Aug. 17 letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, Thompson, who is now the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, demanded answers about the process.
“This issue should be resolved prior to making a final contract award, one that may be illegal,” Thompson said in the letter. The letter does not mention Shirlington by name, instead citing the procurement number used to identify the contract.
Company owner Chris Baker said he was surprised by Thompson’s turnaround.
“The truth is finally having a chance to come out,” Baker said in an interview. “How can the Department of Homeland Security be allowed to break the law?”
Thompson, through aides, declined to comment.
The letter demonstrates how the Shirlington Limousine case, which originally came to light as a side issue to the Cunningham bribery scandal, has expanded into a battle over a program designed to steer contracts to poor neighborhoods, called Historically Underutilized Business Zones, or HUBzones.
Baker recently joined the board of the HUBzone Contractors National Council, an organization of HUBzone contractors who have HUBzone certification.
In a Sept. 10 letter to congressional committees, the trade association’s chairman, Ronald Newlan, complained about the way Shirlington’s contract was taken away. Newlan said DHS’s violation of HUBzone rules is part of a dispute between DHS and the Small Business Administration that Congress should help resolve.
“This particular dispute commands congressional oversight, intervention and resolution,” Newlan wrote.
DHS officials said they are still working on a response to Thompson’s letter.
“We are always willing to talk about how the department conducts its business openly, fairly and with the highest level of integrity. There should be no uncertainty about our good stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and our commitment to open and fair solicitations,” DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner said in a statement. “We’re also mindful of the important role that small businesses and historically underutilized businesses play in our procurements, and we will respond to the chairman promptly.”
Shirlington became the target of congressional hearings in 2006, when press reports linked the company to the Cunningham scandal. The firm had been awarded a five-year contract to shuttle DHS employees around in vans. The contract was renewable each year under the HUBZone program, which limits competition to low-income areas. In total, the company had contracts with the department worth $25 million over six years.
Thompson, then the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) wrote to DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner, demanding to know how Shirlington got its contract.
“We are concerned about revelations that this company, despite its unsatisfactory past performance and its apparent lack of resources, was able to obtain a $21 million contract with the department. Therefore, we are writing to request that you investigate this company and its contracts with the department,” the May 5, 2006, letter said.
The inspector general investigation that Thompson requested found that DHS should not have awarded the contract to Shirlington. The inspector general reported that DHS gave the company an unfair competitive advantage by telling the company about the department’s transportation needs two months before it notified the public and Shirlington’s competitors. The report also said Shirlington did not have the right kind of vans until two months after it started work on the contract. The report did not address why DHS would have given Baker favorable treatment.
Baker disputed the findings and said the investigators never contacted him.
In June 2006, in the wake of the congressional scrutiny, DHS decided to overhaul its shuttle contract with Shirlington and severed the new deal, triggering the current round of lawsuits and accusations.
DHS has said it was trying to fulfill its mission of integrating its diverse components, rather than trying to exclude Shirlington from the contract.
Shirlington also is mentioned in a bribery indictment against Brent R. Wilkes, a California businessman who is charged with paying the firm to ferry Cunningham around Washington as part of more than $700,000 worth of perks. Those favors were intended to get him to steer lucrative federal contracts to Wilkes’s companies.
Wilkes has subpoenaed former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and 10 other members of Congress to testify at his trial Oct. 2 in San Diego. The lawmakers are fighting the subpoenas with the help of House attorneys.
In addition, Mitchell J. Wade, a defense contractor who has admitted bribing the former congressman, told prosecutors that Wilkes had an arrangement with Shirlington, which in turn had a relationship with at least one escort service, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Cunningham, a California Republican, resigned from the House in 2005 after pleading guilty to taking bribes from Wade. He is serving a prison term of up to eight years.
Baker has said he did nothing wrong in his interaction with Cunningham, Wilkes and Wade. He said he became a scapegoat in the Cunningham scandal and was a convenient target for Democrats in election-year politics.
Baker sued the department over the loss of his contract, but his case was dismissed in June of this year when the judge found Shirlington hadn’t submitted its bid for the contract on time. Baker vehemently disputes that claim, saying he arrived to deliver his bid on time but was thwarted by DHS officials.
Although she threw out the case, Judge Susan G. Braden faulted DHS for going out of its way to eliminate minority and small-business contractors.
“They did an extraordinary amount of investigation at this point to eliminate four people from potentially being able to be offerers on the contract,” Braden said.
Continuing its fight last week, Shirlington filed a complaint with the commission that regulates transportation companies in the Washington area. The complaint states that the company that got the biggest portion of Shirlington’s DHS contract is not properly authorized to operate in the Washington area.