The Congressional Black Caucus has seen better days.

The latest member of the exclusive club of national black lawmakers to come under charges of financial misdeeds is veteran Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas (pictured), who steered thousands of scholarship dollars to relatives and children of her top aide.

Johnson broke the rules of the CBC, which restricts relatives of lawmakers from dipping into the pool of college scholarship money provided by the nonprofit CBC Foundation.

The CBC Foundation provides $10,000 a year for each member of the CBC to hand out in scholarships.

No taxpayer money is involved, only private and corporate donations, but that won't keep Johnson from feeling some pressure from voters in her Dallas County district. Johnson, 74, is expected to cruise to an easy victory over an unknown Republican in the heavily Democratic district.

But that doesn't mean voters won't be disappointed when they cast their votes in November, especially when Johnson offered the lame excuse that she didn't "personally benefit" for handing the money to her grandsons, Kirk and David Johnson, two of her great-nephews, Gregory and Preston Moore, and to the son and daughter of her district political director Rod Givens.

Tweet Of the 43 scholarships her office awarded between 2005 and 2008, 15 went to relatives of Johnson or Givens, according to foundation reports.

Is giving relatives a financial boost against the rules wrong?

Of course!

The Johnson disclosure follows the ethics charges hanging over the head of CBC charter member Rep. Charles Rangel of New York and allegations of financial wrongdoing against Rep. Maxine Waters of California.

It's probably not completely fair to lump each of the lawmakers together because of their CBC affiliation. Do we lump together all white lawmakers charged with wrongdoing under the banner of some Congressional White Caucus?

That fact, however, doesn't excuse the arrogance and greed or misjudgment shown by Johnson, Rangel and Waters.

I find the length of service from all three quite interesting. Is it possible that after serving so long, they simply got a little sloppy in their bookkeeping? Perhaps they just stopped caring as much about blurring the ethical lines of service and fattening their own wallets.

I'm sure some Washington think tank has done a study to see when lawmakers run afoul of the law. I'd be interested in the results. If the pattern shown in the cases of Johnson, Rangel and Waters, who have served 17 years, 40 years and 20 years, respectively, is widely repeated, it makes a good case for term limits.

Meanwhile, will all you lawmakers, regardless of creed or color, stop using your office as an ATM machine!