The House Democratic leadership appears to think you don't care about House ethics reform anymore.
They were all for it last fall, when control of Congress was in the balance and everyone was shocked that former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) had been chasing teenage pages for years, and no one had bothered to blow the whistle on him. That was when the Democrats promised they would stop the scandals that had plagued Capitol Hill for years and left members resigning from Congress in disgrace or heading to prison.
They said they would tighten ethics rules and lobbying requirements, and they did do that. But they have consistently ignored action on the most critical ethics problem: the toothless House Ethics Committee and its inability to punish members who break ethics rules.
Now the picture is looking pretty grim for any significant ethics reform in the House. Tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up two lobbying reform bills that will make lobbyists file more paperwork with the House. But neither bill will do anything to give you more oversight on ethics abuses by members of Congress.
It looks like we will not get any disclosure of who is funding fake grassroots "citizens' groups" who shape congressional debate in their favor on issues like telecommunications, health care and energy policy. We also may not get any requirements for lobbyists to disclose the campaign contributions they "bundle" for candidates or a two-year delay for members and top congressional staff to lobby their former colleagues. The bundling requirement is contained in an amendment to the lobbying reform bill, and was done that way to avoid killing the lobbying reform bill.
But our biggest loss is our quest for an independent ethics office to monitor Congress. Never mind that voters said last fall that corruption was as big an issue for them as the economy and the war in Iraq. Never mind that more than 80 percent of Americans told a Washington Post-ABC News poll this year they favored an independent ethics office to monitor Congress.
Did the House act? No. Instead, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, punted the issue to be studied by a task force led by Rep. Mike Capuano, D-MA.
While the task force was busy missing its May 1 deadline, 27 freshman House members asked Capuano to recommend an independent ethics body to help restore public confidence in Congress. Many of these members have a personal stake in the issue -- they believe corruption in Washington had a significant effect in their elections last year, and their fear that colleagues have lost sight of the need for ethics reform will cost them their seats in 2008.
What was Capuano's solution? Right now, he's leaning toward avoiding an outside ethics office while creating an office to investigate outside complaints and decide within 90 days whether those complaints should go to the Ethics Committee.
Capuano used words like "open door" and "transparency" to describe his plan. Here's how I describe it: Bull.
Instead of increased accountability for ethical abuses, the House gets itself an additional layer of insulation, and we get shafted. Again. This is a sham.
If the thoughtful ethics and lobbying reforms passed by the Senate in January are to become law, the House must pass a lobbying reform bill soon. But ethics reform in Congress will be half-hearted and incomplete without an independent ethics office. Tell your member Congress must adopt independent ethics enforcement. After the parade of scandals the past few years, never before have so few owed so much to so many.
