Last summer I wrote in the Reader that Jerry Weller, who represents Illinois’ 11th Congressional District, had stubbornly remained a member of the International Relations Committee and its western hemisphere subcommittee despite an apparent conflict of interest (“The Congressman and the Dictator’s Daughter,” August 25). Weller had married Zury Rios Sosa, a third-term legislator in the Guatemalan legislature, in 2004. Up for reelection that fall, he tacitly admitted that being on the committee and subcommittee represented a conflict of interest, telling the Bloomington Pantagraph, the largest paper in his district, that he would “recuse himself from legislation . . . specific to Guatemala.” Of course that’s hard to do when you’re voting on legislation that covers all of Latin America. Worse, it meant he couldn’t discuss problems in Guatemala that affect this country, such as drug trafficking.
