On September 8, even the Dallas Morning News — a newspaper that has endorsed Johnson for election and reelection over her entire 18-year congressional career — posited in a house editorial that the “scholarship violations” of the Congressional Black Caucus she obtained for relatives against the explicit rules of the CBC Foundation are “starting to overshadow Johnson's years of service.”
The key to the issue, according to the Dallas Morning News, was no longer that she had used her congressional office to improperly obtain scholarships for relatives against CBC foundation rules. Rather, the Dallas Morning News has become concerned that “her story line keeps shifting. For her sake and the sake of her constituents, she needs to find a clear line — preferably one that is the truth — and stick to it.”
Johnson's shifting story — and the occasion for the editorial — changed again this week as her claims not to have been personally involved in awarding the scholarships to relatives were disproven by some letters she had written and signed on congressional stationary. Johnson had intervened to get the CBC Foundation to issue the scholarship checks directly to her relatives, rather than to the college they were attending — a violation of the CBC Foundation's rules. The Dallas Morning News noted that “Johnson's opponent in the November election has released letters showing that she asked the foundation to direct the scholarship money to her grandsons, not to the universities. That would seem to contradict another of her earlier statements, that she had little involvement in the awards.”
Johnson's opponent, Stephen Broden, has highlighted the dishonesty. "There have been statements made by Congresswoman Johnson that she was oblivious to the process and that she was sort of detached from it and was not involved in the detail," Broden told the Dallas Morning News. "We see here that she was orchestrating how the checks should be made out."
The Dallas Morning News concluded: “This scholarship affair is starting to blemish her years of service to Dallas and Texas. If the initial awarding of the scholarships wasn't bad enough, the way she has handled the aftermath is egregious, especially given the significant responsibility she has in representing a key part of Dallas.”
Photo: Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson
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