'100 semesters' cut Reid's personal wealth

Group assesses lawmakers' net worth through public records

Publication: Las Vegas Review Journal

Steve Tetreault and Molly Ball
May 19, 2008

Unlike many other members of Congress, it appears Sen. Harry Reid actually lost wealth during his past decade in public office.

A project unveiled last week by the Sunlight Foundation, a public interest group, attempts to calculate lawmakers' net worth compared to when they first got to Washington.

In Reid's case, the group used figures from 1995, when congressional finance reports were modernized. Reid's first year in Congress was 1983.

The foundation calculated Reid's personal wealth, mainly in Nevada property and mining interests, at a net average $5.4 million a decade ago.

That amount had dropped to $3.3 million by 2006, the most recent year that numbers were available from reports lawmakers file with the House and Senate, the group figured.

Reid spokesman Jon Summers said the numbers were generally accurate.

"He sold most of the land he had to put each of his five kids through college -- 100 semesters," Summers said in explaining the decrease.

Lawmakers file personal finance reports each May. The newest ones, covering 2007, began to be made public in the past several days, but not in time to be included in the study.

The Sunlight Foundation, like the Center for Responsive Politics, another group that tracks money in politics, tried to pinpoint wealth by averaging reported assets and liabilities, although it cautioned the numbers are not precise.

Congress does not require lawmakers to report exact values. Rather, their assets can be listed in broad categories of value. They are not required to disclose the value of their personal residences.

The report can be viewed online at http://fortune535.sunlightprojects.org.

In the Nevada delegation, Rep. Shelley Berkley showed the most dramatic increase in wealth after she married Dr. Larry Lehrner, a Las Vegas kidney specialist, in 1999.

Berkley's financial worth jumped from a net average $451,000 as a House freshman elected in 1998 to $12 million by 2006, the foundation calculated.

Rep. Jon Porter reported a net $4.4 million his freshman year of 2002. By 2006 it had grown to $5.1 million.

Sen. John Ensign's wealth grew from $2.4 million when he was elected to the Senate in 2000 to $3.8 million in 2006.

Porter and Ensign aides said the figures were generally accurate.

Each said the increase was because of asset appreciation.

Sunlight Foundation staffers were re-examining their calculations for freshman Rep. Dean Heller after a possible error was pointed out to them.

Using the foundation's formula, the Review-Journal calculated Heller's average net worth dipped from $2.8 million to $2.4 million in the year since he was elected. His office had no comment.

The foundation calculated that, out of 535 Senate and House members, 333 showed wealth increases over their careers in Congress and 232 appeared to be millionaires.

The foundation sought to make another point. While more than half the members of Congress appear to be worth $1 million or more, the net worth of the average American family in 2006 was $93,000, it said.