Back in May, Jim Ryun, Mark Foley and a cou­ple of their neigh­bors host­ed a block par­ty. As you see, entrance to each par­ty cost $1,000, and the gang of Repub­li­can House mem­bers served var­i­ous tasty beverages.

Back when Mark Foley and his predilec­tion for young Con­gres­sion­al pages became known, Jim Ryun was asked what he knew about his neigh­bor. “I’ve met him, but I don’t spend any time with him,” he told the Cap­i­tal Jour­nal.

Con­front­ed with abun­dant reports about the D Street Block Par­ty that Ryun and Foley, along with 3 oth­er Repub­li­can House mem­bers, had thrown last May, Ryun claimed the events weren’t joint­ly planned.

Then the invi­ta­tion (shown here) start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing. It shows that the events were joint­ly planned, and that a sin­gle invi­ta­tion went out for all of them. 

In response, Ryun’s spokesman “stressed [that] the fundrais­er was put togeth­er by cam­paign staff mem­bers, not Ryun.” Indeed, the spokesman explained “Jim did­n’t speak to Con­gress­man Foley or any of the oth­er Con­gress mem­bers about this.”

As you can see in the expand­ed part of the invi­ta­tion, the con­tact for the event is not the Con­gress­man him­self. But it also isn’t just any old cam­paign staff. Ned Ryun is Jim’s son, as well as the head of a DC-area PAC. And yes, he hap­pens to be on his father’s cam­paign pay­roll as well.

This appears to be the moral equiv­a­lent of hir­ing a spouse as a cam­paign work­er, mak­ing the cam­paign a fam­i­ly busi­ness, rather than a pub­lic service.

We can do bet­ter.