Washington ? Rep. John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who wants to be House majority leader, helped expose abuses at the House bank under Democrats’ control a decade ago and then embarrassed his own party with his dealings with lobbying interests.

Boehner was forced to apologize in the mid-1990s for distributing checks from tobacco companies to his colleagues as they worked on the House floor.

More recently, he was scrutinized for accepting donations, parties and trips from Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest provider of student loans, as it lobbied the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which Boehner leads.

He routinely has accepted trips over the past five years that were paid for by special interests and often took along his wife, Debbie. For instance, he took three trips in a single year to Florida at the expense of corporate interests.

Just this month, Boehner refused to return donations he got from American Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of an influence-peddling investigation. Many other lawmakers gave back the money or donated it to charity.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaks in his Capitol Hill office in this Feb. 11, 2003, file photo. Boehner's challenge is to convince GOP colleagues that he's the best candidate to fill the vacancy left by Rep. Tom DeLay.

Boehner has a daunting challenge: convincing GOP colleagues that he is the best candidate to move the party from the ethics stain created by the money-laundering indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Abramoff’s guilty plea.

Veteran Congress watchers are dubious.

“While Boehner has been out of the party leadership in recent years, and in some tension with DeLay, he built and maintained close relationships with the lobbying community that counter his outsider campaign,” said Thomas Mann, who studies Congress for the Brookings Institution think tank.

Boehner rose to the No. 4 GOP leadership spot before losing a party vote in 1998. Today, in the race to succeed DeLay, Boehner is competing against acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo. Blunt is a DeLay protege who took money from Abramoff-related sources while writing letters beneficial to the lobbyist’s clients.

Blunt claimed on Saturday to have the support of 117 Republicans, a majority of the 231 GOP lawmakers in the House, but a list he released on Friday identified only 82 colleagues by name. Boehner claims the support of about 90 Republicans.

Some Republicans uneasy about Boehner and Blunt’s pasts have promoted a third candidate. Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., answered the call Friday by entering the contest. The election is expected the week of Jan. 31, when the House reconvenes.

Boehner is pledging to limit lawmakers’ ability to attach their own special-interest projects to large spending bills. Boehner also says he would eliminate the GOP’s “K Street project,” which aggressively solicited donations from lobbyists.

Boehner, however, is well-connected to the lobbying profession.

Boehner gets most of his special-interest money from insurance and tobacco companies. Lobbyists gave him $30,250 in 2003-04, far less than the $211,300 that went to the top House recipient, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that studies fundraising.

In the past five years, special interests have paid for 31 of Boehner’s 36 recorded domestic and international trips. On 22 of those 31 privately funded trips Boehner took his wife. The average cost for each of the 31 trips was about $4,000.

Sallie Mae provided one of the three trips in 2003 to West Palm Beach, Fla.; its executives have donated more than $150,000 to Boehner since 2001.

The lender’s lobbyist threw a party for Boehner on Sept. 30, 2004, with the lawmaker collecting checks from 34 of Sallie Mae’s executives that day.