REPUBLICANS DIG IN BUT FAIL TO PREVENT THE CREATION OF A NEW OFFICE OF CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS

GOP golfers Tom DeLay & Jack Abramoff, Inc-- in happier days

More often than not, we're not happy in DWT World with the lack of real action and real reform from a Speaker we had placed so much stock in. Last night, however-- as she does every now and then-- Nancy Pelosi came through with flying colors.

Individual legislators fall into corruption because of human nature and there are always some bad apples, like William Jefferson (D-LA). But when the whole system malfunctions and descends into a massive Culture of Corruption-- and this becomes the norm-- our government and even our society is endangered. After a decade of Republican rule that was premised on greed and selfishness as an ideological ideal, that is exactly what happened. Nancy Pelosi and some-- though not a majority-- of reform-minded Democrats plus a tiny handful of reform-minded Republicans, were determined to prevent that from happening again, regardless of which party controls the House. The resistance was not unlike Winston Church's defiance of the Germans. Kansas right-winger Todd Tiahrt thundered at his colleagues: "If you have a single ounce of self-preservation, you'll vote no." He was joined by a Hawaii moderate, Neil Abercrombie who also thundered. "Ladies and gentleman, we have a new grand jury in the House. Any referral to the Office of Congressional Ethics will be tantamount to a guilty verdict. Any other conclusion by the ethics committee will be seen as a cover-up. I guarantee it."

It's so much easier if you can make all your own rules that you have to live by and then police them yourself too. How will there ever be campaign finance reform when the beneficiaries of the corrupt status quo determine the rules. Who is going to ban lobbyists when lobbyists are schmearing all those who would vote on the ban? The House members have been very comfortable with the House Ethics Committee because no one ever gets into much trouble. It was more like a let's-save-each-other's-asses racket. Pelosi was genuinely committed to changing that-- and last night, against all odds and through an immense strength of character-- she did.

A friend of mine who works in her office said that it was "a huge feather in the cap of our new members, who played a key role in pushing this... including one Bill Foster whose first vote was to override Bush's veto on torture and then was the deciding vote on the procedural vote that almost killed this rule change." And those procedural votes will get you every time. Congressmembers assume no one is ever watching those and they get away with murder and think they won't be held accountable-- like when Lieberman would notoriously and consistently vote with the GOP on procedural matters and then, having made sure the progressive legislation was doomed, join the Democrats in the pointless final vote and go scampering back to his progressive state claiming he had voted the way his constituents insisted he should.

But even in the final roll call, 23 Democrats joined the Republicans to vote against the new ethics bill. That was more than made up for by 33 Republicans giving their corrupt leadership the finger and voting with the Democrats. The vote cut across ideological lines, although progressives and moderates tended to vote for the legislation and reactionaries tended to vote against it. Many vulnerable Republicans in tight re-election campaigns-- from Randy Kuhl (R-NY), Sam Graves (R-MO), Chris Shays (R-CT), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Joe Knollenberg (R-MI) and the Diaz-Balart Brothers (R-FL) to Vito Fossella (R-NY), Phil English (R-PA). Tom Reynolds (R-NY) and Robin Hayes (R-NC)-- were too scared to vote no, well aware it would wind up as an election issue back home.

With the exception of William Jefferson (who voted for the bill), all of the most ethically suspect members-- from hard-core criminals awaiting indictment such as Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Virgil Goode (R-VA), John Doolittle (R-CA), Heather Wilson (R-NM), Don Young (R-AK), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Tom Feeney (R-FL) and Gary Miller (R-CA) to the ones who always have smelly rumors circulating about them, such as Jack Murtha (D-PA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), and Darrell Issa (R-CA)-- voted no. As far as I can tell the only freshman Democrat to vote with the GOP on this was Rahm Emanuel's boy Heath Shuler (D-NC).

The final vote was 229-182 and Pelosi had to bend the rules and twist some arms to get there. This morning's NY Times posits that "the new Office of Congressional Ethics was promoted by Democratic leaders as a way to restore credibility to an internal policing process that had been seen as largely ineffective in recent years, even as individual lawmakers were indicted, rebuked and jailed for various offenses."

By creating a panel of six people of “exceptional public standing,” the House, for the first time, delegated the authority for regulating behavior in the House to nonlawmakers. Current members of the House, federal employees and anyone who has been a registered lobbyist in the past year would be ineligible.

“The public does not trust us on ethics issues at this point,” said Representative Michael E. Capuano, Democrat of Massachusetts and head of a task force that recommended the new panel. “They think we are all here protecting each other.”

I asked two of the Blue America-endorsed candidates, Dennis Shulman, who is running against far right rubber stamp, anti-reform incumbent Scott Garrett, and Mark Schauer, who is running against Tim Walberg in Michigan, someone cut from an identical mold, how it is possible that congressmen purporting to represent well-educated and moderate New Jersey and Michigan districts could possibly vote against this bill to clean up Congress. Dennis pointed out that "while right wing extremists like Scott Garrett continue to support awarding Dick Cheney's Halliburton billions of dollars in no-bid contracts in Iraq, they refuse to support setting aside even a fraction of that money to ensure our Congressmen uphold the highest ethical standards. It's time to bring sensible leadership back to Washington." Mark, of course, agrees. "I have always believed that public officials should be held to the highest standards, I am disappointed that in this time when trust of the government is at an all time low that Congressman Walberg would turn his back on the opportunity to have real ethics reform." And we agree with them both-- which is a big part of why we set up Blue America in the first place and why we support high quality candidates like Dennis Shulman and Mark Schauer.


UPDATE: BOEHNER VOWS TO SABOTAGE NEW HOUSE ETHICS PANEL

This afternoon's Congressional Quarterly reports that Minority Leader John Boehner, just hours after the House passed serious ethics rules-- which, needless to say, he and the rest of the corrupt GOP leadership bitterly opposed-- was bragging that he will prevent the rules from being implemented by not cooperating. Blunt went and hid under a table.


UPDATE: AND THEN THERE WAS MEAN JEAN SCHMIDT

Needless to say, Ohio's worst Bush rubber stamp, Mean Jean Schmidt, voted against ethics reform. She and ethics reform have a contentious history. In 2006 Schmidt was reprimanded by the Ohio Elections Commission for making false statements about her education and endorsements. Last fall, she was accused of earmarking funds that benefited a contributor to her campaign.

The Democrat running against her is Blue America-endorsed Victoria Wulsin and, at least in part, she decided to run because of Schmidt's sorry ethics record. "Jean would rather play politics than focus on ending corruption in Washington,” said Dr. Victoria Wulsin. “Our government needs to recapture the trust and confidence of the American people. We need to put their interests first and not let politics stand in the way of accomplishing what is right."