Jack Abramoff is singing to Vanity Fair and planning to "name names" when his trial begins in Florida later this month. Duke Cunningham will soon serve eight years in the slammer, the longest sentence ever given to a congressman for crimes in office. Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, Conrad Burns and others may share a similar fate.
But things are eerily business as usual on Capitol Hill, as the Senate takes up lobbying reform this week and the House plans a vote before Easter. Already the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee last week voted against one of the few good proposals–introduced by Senator Barack Obama–to create an independent ethics enforcement agency that would compliment and bolster the pathetically inactive ethics committee. The proposal went down 11-5, a telling precursor of things to come. Wrote Public Citizen’s Craig Holman:
The committee hearing was extremely disheartening. Most members argued there simply is no Congressional ethics problem; that the public’s perception of corruption on Capitol Hill is a myth. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) had to the gall to mock the public’s concerns by offering several ridiculous amendments, including one that would prohibit government buildings from being named after living senators. Coburn said he was planning to introduce the amendments in "jest," as a way of snickering at our calls for reform.
Ha, ha, Coburn’s quite the comedian. But he’s not laughing alone. When the Senate Democrats offered their surprisingly strong "Honest Leadership Act" on the floor this week it too saw defeat, on a 55-44 party line vote. Instead the Senate unanimously passed a law forbidding lobbyists from buying lawmakers meals and drinks. The poor impoverished Senators, as Trent Lott sulked, will be forced to eat with their wives.
Other coming amendments, CQ reported, "are likely to be accepted without a roll call vote, thus avoiding a potentially harmful public record of positions taken on ‘good government’ legislation."
Silly me. I could’ve sworn I heard Senators boasting weeks ago that sunlight was supposed to be the best disinfectant.
