Update: The House passed HR 9 by a vote of 390-33.

The House is scheduled to vote today on HR 9, legislation renewing and strengthening the landmark Voting Rights Act  Rep.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 played a major role in protecting the voting rights of African-Americans, Latinos and people who are not fully proficient in English.  Many credit the act as the most effective civil rights bill enacted in American history.

Call your representative NOW at (202) 224-3121. Tell your representative:  I urge you to fully support H.R. 9 and oppose any harmful amendments.

July will prove a significant month for public broadcasting, and efforts to protect the public's airwaves will take on great significance.  The bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee in June with $95 million in cuts to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will soon be up for debate on the House floor - and so will the future of public television and radio.

In a July 3 National Review article, Kate O'Beirne & Richard Lowry wrote:

But saving the CPB is about far more than saving Big Bird.  (Though it is important to note that the proposed budget cuts will eliminate funding for Ready To Learn, the service that produces shows like Sesame Street and characters like Big Bird.)  The CPB is important not only because of characters like Big Bird, Clifford, and Elmo, but because public broadcasting is a critical source of public affairs and election coverage. Public broadcasting connects people to their communities, by airing local news and artists.  Moreover, when a few media conglomerates control the vast majority of our airwaves, public broadcasting is one of the few remaining outlets for journalists to report the news, unfettered by concerns of angering their corporate owners.

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum reports in Monday's Washington Post that Jeffrey S. Shockey, the #2 staffer for the House Appropriations Committee, received a $2 million dollar parting gift from his lobbying firm in 2005. Before lobbying for Copeland Lowery, Shockley had previously worked for Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), who is now Appropriations Committee Chairman. Parting gifts from a lobbying firm are ordinary; however, the $2M sum has raised many eyebrows in Washington. Birnbaum writes, "The situation is an example of a common occurrence -- the spinning of the 'revolving door' between the public and private sectors."

The line between public and private sectors is blurry at best. Shockey did not leave behind a cache of clients, so what, exactly, will the firm receive in return for the payoff? Birnbaum writes:

If these allegations are true, then this is another example of the ongoing endeavor to purchase our democracy. Is the Congress and its staffers working for the American people? I don't think the American people endow parting gifts.

Common Cause's national office has joined the podcasting community (Common Cause Georgia has been podcasting for a while) with this short little offering from Mike Surrusco on the Lobbying and Ethics Reform bill currently before the House.

You've read his posts, now hear Mike sound off on the House's version of lobby "reform."

It might take a little bit to load, but it's worth the wait.  Let us know what you think in the Comments section, including topics for future podcasts you'd like from us.

As you may or may not know, the House of Representatives is about to consider its version of the lobbying and ethics reform legislation that the Senate passed a few weeks ago. It is a weak bill with little to recommend it. It does not do anything about the indefensible House Ethics Committee which has been frozen since the beginning of last year, despite the unraveling of one of the biggest Congressional scandals in history. Nor does it address the issue of lobbyists, like Jack Abramoff, acting as fundraisers for Members of Congress. What's more, the House bill still includes the 527 language that Republican leaders had said would be separated out from the bill. Remember, the House has already passed 527 reform legislation.

At this point, the only reason to leave the 527 language in the bill is to use the lobbying reform legislation as leverage to make it harder for Democrats to stop the 527 reforms. If the House passes a bill with 527 language in it, it is entirely possible the conference report that reconciles the House and Senate version will include the 527 stuff even though the Senate bill did not. If that happens, then the Democrats will be in the unfortunate position of having to filibuster the lobby reform bill (gasp!) in order to block the 527 reforms. Democrats oppose the 527 limits because 527 groups were so helpful to the Democrats in the last election.

In the end, Republicans are using the lobby reform legislation as a way to pass something totally unrelated and entirely political - since Republicans in general have not historically been huge supporters of campaign finance reform, until now. I think this speaks to the general cynicism with which many members of Congress and especially Republicans have greeted this ethics reform legislation. The legislation does little to actually address the problems that have come to light as a result of the Abramoff scandal, but opportunistically the reform legislation in the House attacks the Democrats fundraising apparatus. And just so you know, I support better campaign finance laws - I just think the proposition that 527's are somehow relevant to the ethics and lobbying scandal in Congress is complete garbage.

Norm Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and regular contributor to Roll Call newspaper. His most recent column includes this tasty quote:


Whoa.

Dear Speaker Hastert and Leader Pelosi:

I am writing to ask you to intervene in the standoff between the members of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct that has prevented the committee from functioning since the beginning of the 109th Congress.

For more than 14 months, during one of the biggest ethics scandals in Congress, the House Ethics Committee has been mired in partisan gridlock. Most recently, Ethics Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Ranking Member Alan Mollohan (D-WV) have publicly traded accusations, calling into question the other's stewardship of the committee.

After spending all of 2005 consumed with internal disagreements over rules and staffing, the Ethics Committee is now unable to decide which of the many potential ethics cases to investigate. This is unprecedented.

The time has come for you to provide leadership to fix the process of enforcing the rules of conduct in the House. The alternative is to allow the Ethics Committee to continue to serve as a venue for political infighting, at the expense of the institution.

I am sitting in a room in the Rayburn building, surrounded by some of the activists who have been pounding the halls in the Congress, talking to their representatives about supporting HR 550.

They are filling out the reports that they write after each visit (we've scheduled more than 100 constituent visits during the two days of lobbying). Here are a few random excerpts:

"Seemed very receptive; said she had received emails/letters on the bill from consituents."

"We all left feeling pretty good. Very receptive to our three main points (audit, papercounts, disclosed source code)..."

"Started off by saying his member was very positive about paper trails so he wouldn't be a hard sell."

Already, after the first day of lobbying, three new Democrats [ED: make that six Democrats by the end of the day on Friday] and three new Republicans have signed on to HR 550. We expect many more to follow today and in the weeks to come. These people, who came in from all around the country on their own dime, are amazing -- well informed, articulate, and totally committed. It is an honor to work with them. And they are having a blast. "This is by far the most effective political activity I have ever participated in," Carolyn Fuller of Cambridge, Mass., told me. I have to agree.