Disclosure Forms Show Congress' Wealth

Sen. Harry Reid, whose leadership post depends on holding onto a fragile majority in the Senate, can always fall back on his gold mining claims in Nevada. Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd pads his income with rent from a cottage in County Galway, Ireland.

House and Senate lawmakers filed their annual financial disclosure forms Thursday, revealing a variety of income sources well beyond their salaries.

Rank-and-file House and Senate members last year received $165,200 in pay. Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., both got $183,500 for their previous roles of minority leaders in the Senate and House.

Former Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., now a regular member, will take a pay cut of almost $47,000 this year after earning $212,100 last year as speaker.

But senators in particular tend to come from the upper echelons of wealth, with many claiming incomes and assets reaching well into the millions.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who is running for president, reported that her husband, former President Clinton, made more than $10 million in paid speeches last year. The couple held two accounts — a regular bank account and a blind trust, each valued at between $5 million and $25 million. The forms don't require Congress members to report exact figures, only to note the ranges their holdings fall within.

Senate Majority Leader Reid, who drew questions about his disclosure form last year over a Las Vegas land deal that allowed him to collect $1.1 million for property he hadn't personally owned in three years, owns portions of more than 200 acres of mining claims, including old claims around his hometown of Searchlight.

His Nevada land holdings and mining claims were valued from $496,000 to $1.39 million.

Reid's Republican counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he held property in the District of Columbia worth $1 million-$5 million.

But a large portion of the family assets is held by McConnell's wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. She had investments in various index and mutual funds totaling between $1 million and $2.3 million.

That pales beside others in the Senate millionaires' club. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., heir to his family's oil fortune, has three blind trusts worth more than $80 million.

On the lower end of the wealth scale, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said he had no major sources of unearned income in 2006. His major asset was a bank account held jointly with his wife worth between $50,000 and $100,000.

Dodd, in addition to taking in $5,001-$15,000 for his cottage in Ireland, received a $30,000 book advance for "Letters from Nuremburg." His father was a prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials after World War II.

Several other senators were also involved in book projects: Clinton reported royalties of $350,000 for her book "Living History." Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, received a $16,667 advance for a book he is co-writing on radical Islamic movements in Southeast Asia.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, made $1,462 from sales of her suspense novel, which features a combative, liberal senator much like herself.

Boxer also was paid $737 for playing herself on an episode of the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Lawmakers cannot make more than 15 percent of their salaries in outside earned income, although book royalties are exempt from that limit.