Why Does No One Name The Names When It Comes To Congressional Corruption?

Republicans got rid of their head of corrupt practices; the Democrats haven't

Someone-- or a few someones-- must be responsible for the rules change that allows Members of Congress to take bribes in the form of lobbyist-sponsored travel without reporting it on financial disclosure forms. I read about the "rules change" and how "it happened" and how it has "occurred behind closed doors." But nowhere does it say who was behind those closed doors. All of the reporting sounded very passive… like it was something that happened, not like it was something John Boehner or his crooked Rules Committee Chairman, Pete Sessions, decided to make happen.

I called everyone I know who I thought might know, even my White House contacts. Everyone deplored it but no one knew who had initiated it or who had approved it. It was driving me crazy. Yesterday Pelosi had jumped on it and made it clear this was a Republican move and that the House Democrats would challenge it. By early today, there seemed to be some kind of move coalescing among Republicans to blame Eric Cantor for a move that had been blamed all day Monday on anonymous staffers from the House Ethics Committee which is led by ethics-free Republican Michael Conaway (R-TX) and also includes partisan pinhead Trey Gowdy (R-SC).

“The Committee adopted these changes and publicly highlighted them on page 2 of the financial disclosure instructions, which were provided to all financial disclosure filers and posted on the Committee's public web site months ago,” said Rust. “The Committee is committed to effective and efficient public disclosure, and will continue to look for opportunities to improve the public filings required of Members and staff.”

It's unclear how the change came about. Under the Ethics Committee guidelines, rule changes require a vote of the full committee, which consists of 10 members, five from each party. But interpretative changes may be made by the chairman and the ranking member acting jointly without the rest of the committee.

Pelosi warned that, if the members of the panel don't reverse the change, Democrats will push legislation to do it for them.

"If the Ethics Committee does not act, then we will call upon the Speaker to allow a vote on legislation to reverse this decision," she said. "In the meantime, Members are encouraged to disclose such trips to both the Clerk and in their annual disclosures.”

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), though, was quick to note that Democrats on the Ethics Committee had endorsed the change.

"Rep. Pelosi's staff needs to talk to her representative on the Ethics Committee, who signed off on this bipartisan change to reduce duplicative paperwork," Michael Steel said in an email.

Congressional Democrats and Democratic House candidates are outraged. One congressmember, who insisted on anonymity, said it smacked of a backroom deal between Cantor and Hoyer, both of whom claim power based on their ability to direct K Street money and favors to members of their respective caucuses. "When it comes to ethics, Steny and Cantor are like the Bobbsey Twins… no daylight at all… I don't know if I would use a legal term like 'corrupt' to describe them but they've helped craft a system that stinks of corruption."

Mike Obermueller, Democratic challenger to one of Congress' most corrupt chairman, John Kline, who has run the House Committee on Education and the Workforce as a personal piggybank, is fed up with the kind of self-serving corruption he sees in Washington. "While the Republican House recklessly impedes progress on bills that would create jobs or stimulate the economy," he said yesterday, "to no one’s surprise, yesterday they made time to change the rules to benefit themselves. You know who isn’t benefiting from this change? The working families in this district. They want Congress working on an increase in the minimum wage and making sure college is affordable. All this change does is minimize accountability and transparency in our representation in Washington, D.C. I’m ready to get to work, not spend my time securing special interest funded travel. Congressman Kline should join me in opposing this loophole that is intended to reduce oversight and transparency."

Meanwhile, the House Ethics Committee has let some of the worst crooks in government-- from Michele Bachmann and Joe Crowley to Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm-- get away with disgracing Congress and bringing it into the disrepute it now stands. Who remembers Jack Abramoff, "the man who bought Washington?" He's out of prison now and freely admits to having bribed Members of Congress. As usual, we have a briber but no bribees. Listen:




UPDATE: Mike Conaway Buckles

Under intense pressure from Democrats and nonpartisan good government groups, Boehner told Texas crook/Ethics Committee chairman Mike Conaway to give up on the GOP's sneaky plan to allow lobbyists to bribe congressmembers with all-expenses-paid luxury holidays that didn't have to be reported. "We will reverse that decision," Conaway said during an appearance on a local radio talk show in his Texas district. "It was a wrong decision and we're going to fix it." Conaway is still pissed off he was caught and forced to reverse himself, saying the firestorm occurred "only because one reporter who makes a living jacking people up about these trips" wrote about the issue. "We had gotten not one complaint from the public," he added of the unannounced change. "Not one person had looked for this information except this reporter." He also blamed Republican Ethics Committee Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA)-- "a guy named Mike Fitzpatrick," in his words-- for blowing the whistle on his sleazy maneuver and then joining the Democrats to denounce him as a crook.