Republican John Ensign brought an energetic fresh face to local politics when he ousted an incumbent Democrat in 1994 to win a U.S. House seat representing Southern Nevada. He ran not only as a conservative champion of limited government, but also as a religious conservative on social issues.
Ensign closely identified himself with the Republican “family values” agenda and over the years has made a strong point of his belief in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. In 1992 he joined Promise Keepers, an all-male Christian group, which he told the Las Vegas Sun in 1996 stood for fidelity, purity and spiritual renewal.
It was therefore no surprise when Ensign called on then-President Bill Clinton in 1998 to resign over the president’s affair with a White House intern. In 2007 Ensign strongly urged then-Sen. Larry Craig to resign after the Idaho Republican pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a man in an airport restroom.
Ensign said Clinton “has no credibility left” and that Craig was “a disgrace.”
The tables abruptly turned with the revelation that Ensign, now serving his second term in the U.S. Senate, had an affair from December 2007 through last August with a former campaign employee. The affair involved Cynthia Hampton, whose husband, Doug Hampton, was a senior member of Ensign’s staff. At a news conference Tuesday, Ensign described the couple as close friends of him and his wife.
At the news conference, Ensign, who has three and a half years left in his term, said he plans to stay in office.
We have always believed that sexual indiscretions by public officials should be between the officials and their spouses, their families, their consciences and, ultimately, the voters should they seek reelection. Sexual transgressions are not, of themselves, a reason to resign. (Larry Craig was an exception because he pleaded guilty to a criminal offense.)
The larger issue in the case of the Ensign confession is his hypocrisy. For the past 30 years, the Republican Party has wrapped itself in the flag, the Bible and the notion that only it represents “family values.” In their intolerance of the beliefs and behavior of others, they have stood smugly, if falsely, on what they have claimed was the moral high ground.
Over the years that ground has proved to be quicksand for many elected members of that party. Now, sadly, Ensign has joined them.
We aren’t here to cast stones at Ensign’s self-admitted human frailty. We all have faults. We truly hope that the reconciliation Ensign says has taken place between him and his wife and family does make their relationships stronger.
But if you are to make your political raison d’etre “family values,” “the sanctity of marriage” and the belief that only your beliefs are the just and true ones, then it would be wise to back that up by the way you live your life. Betraying your wife and one of your closest friends isn’t the way to do it.
What does this mean for Nevada? In the short term, at least, it loses the state a measure of clout in the Senate. Ensign resigned Wednesday from his role as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, a position that made him the fourth-ranking Republican in the Senate. Today, he is relegated to being a back-bencher.
The single-issue voters who have supported Ensign may very well look past his transgressions to support him in the future if he continues to have political aspirations. There were indications he had in mind a potential run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
But those voters who place “family values” above all else will now be forced to ask themselves whether Ensign truly represents their beliefs.
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