Thursday, January 18, 2007

Ethics Reform    [Stephen Spruiell]

The Senate has passed an ethics reform bill, 96-2. The process was not entirely without conservative victories:

1. Earmark transparency: Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina embarrassed Harry Reid and Dick Durbin into including a provision requiring the disclosure of which lawmakers request which earmarks in spending bills.

2. No new restrictions on grassroots groups: Republicans were able to win enough votes to strip out a provision that would have made it harder for grassroots organizations like the NRA and the ACLU to organize petitions and campaigns.

3. A promised vote on rescission authority/line-item veto: Whatever you call it, it would enable the president to strip the egregious earmarks out of a bill and send them back to Congress for a separate vote.

The Republicans tried to get a vote on rescission authority as an amendment to this bill, but the Democrats threw a tantrum and the New York Times and the Washington Post (in unison with the Democrats) characterized the fight as a Republican attempt to kill the Democrats’ really great and important ethics reform bill. The result was a compromise: The Republicans let the ethics bill come to a vote, and the Democrats promised to let the Republicans have a vote on rescission authority when the Senate debates the minimum-wage bill in a few weeks.

All that said, Sen. Tom Coburn (one of the two senators who voted no) had the best take on the bill that just passed: "The problem in Washington is not lobbyists; the problem is us.  Unfortunately, many of the provisions in this bill are focused on the wrong problem."

01/18 11:39 PMShare