Ensign Evicted From C Street?

Senator John Ensign (R-NV) is leaving his long-time DC digs at 133 C Street SE on Capitol Hill, where a conservative Christian cabal maintains rooms for powerful lawmakers (the building is registered as a church and pays no taxes). Is “the Fellowship” forcing Senator Ensign to leave his below-market bargain pied-à-terre?

No. The senator maintains he left on his own, to spare other house residents further negative publicity — as if he, Chip Pickering, and  Mark Sanford had never lived, loved, and prayed at C Street. It is true, though, that Mr. Ensign, an Evangelical, will probably have to face the glare of the Senate Ethics Committee to explain the pay-offs made to his mistress, Cynthia Hampton, by his father, gambling magnate Mike Ensign. There is also talk of a Justice Department inquiry.

And “The Fellowship” does prize its secrecy, emerging only once a year as the vague power behind the National Prayer Breakfast but working behind the scenes as a mission to the powerful. If Fellowship members are in the spotlight, they might have to stop praying with mass murders, rich thugs and oligarchs, as they have done throughout the organization’s 70-year history. 

The Fellowship has been compared to a “viral AA” of the rich and powerful. It calls itself “private” though outsiders see it as “secret.” According to Jeff Sharlet, author of the timely book The Family : The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,  the group takes as its charter Romans 13:

 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

What have The Least Among Us done for you lately? The Fellowship cultivates the rich and powerful — whoever is currently in power — discretely, in the name of God.

The location of Senator Ensign’s new DC home is unknown. It will probably cost three or four times his C Street rent.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Tags: C Street, John Ensign, National Prayer Breakfast, religion, Republicans, sex, The Fellowship