An Independent Office of Congressional Ethics
The Common Cause Blog celebrates Ethics: VICTORY.
The House voted to have this independent office because of the perception by the public that colleagues may not be very forceful in dealing with ethics issues that they themselves might be abusing. It seems to me to be a good thing because as it becomes harder to rationalize certain behaviors as ethical it becomes easier to simply avoid the appearance of impropriety. This is another step in the right direction of a more trustworthy government.
…the Speaker deserves whatever credit she gets for this and probably more. If Nancy Pelosi hadn’t initiated the ethics task force, decided that her caucus had to implement its suggestion of an independent enforcement body, and most importantly twisted arms of her fellow Democrats, this wouldn’t have happened. Plenty of members of the Democratic and Republican caucuses wavered on this and hoped it would go away. Pelosi wouldn’t let that happen, and neither would we. And thank goodness it didn’t.
And the Blog had this quote in response to the lawmakers who thought the Legislators can police themselves just fine Here
“Unless you were sound asleep prior to the last election, unless you were living in another country, another land in another time, you know what the people thought about this, the people’s House that we love,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, the majority leader.
Bravo Speaker Pelosi and those who listened to the people. Now if the Democrats can take the next step and begin deliberation on Redistricting and Campaign Finance Reform to level the playing field for all candidates 
opinions powered by SendLove.to
11 Responses to “An Independent Office of Congressional Ethics”
QandO had this hilarious comment from a lawmaker who objected to the idea that outsiders were needed to police their ethics:
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=8074
More details.
Hopefully the link will work!!
House Defeats First Ethics Vote Protest
The House just beat back the first formal protest against last night's controversial votes to create a new Office of Congressional Ethics. The chamber voted along party lines, 215-193, to table a Republican resolution calling for yesterday's votes to be scuttled and for at least two full-scale investigations of the evening's events.
Republicans believe that a procedural vote before final passage of the ethics reform bill last night was held open well past the allotted 15 minutes because Democrats were losing on the question and needed the extra time to twist arms. The GOP argues that tactic violated a new House rule implemented at the start of this Congress preventing a vote from being “held open for the sole purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote.”
Today's vote was on a GOP resolution calling for both the ethics committee and another panel — a select committee already established to investigate a controversial August vote — to probe last night's events, and for the controversial vote in question to be vacated. The GOP's move today failed, but that doesn't mean this fight is over. Bringing such resolutions to the floor is one of the few weapons available to the minority in the House, so Republicans are expected to employ this method more often as this election year goes on to make the argument that Democrats are hypocrites.
Congressional ethics? Sorry, I don't understand. You're speaking in oxymorons.
Amen. About time this happened. I don't care who was responsible, it just had to happen.
Congressional ethics is an oxymoron only to the extent that we let it be that way.
We can change the system to elect more candidates who value continued incremental changes to strengthen the wall between special interests and the crafting of public policy.
What can you do today to move us closer to a congress we can be proud of? Why not send money to the candidates who voted for the ethics reforms and to those candidates who are running against incumbents who voted against the reforms.
The real question is how with congressional ethics function once the U.S. becomes a one party state. Can a government control by a single political ever be ethical.
SD- You are such a broken record!
So were the Republicans opposed to this only because the Democrats were backing it? I guess it doesn't fit with the image of the “do nothing Congress.” Congrats to Ms Pelosi-this has been needed for a long time.
Paul Silver- Thanks for a good post. It was a nice break from the Spitzer media orgy.
It's too bad this kind of story is never a headline story., or even a story worthy of mention by most media outlets.
That's great!
Now if we can just get our congressional leaders to stand up and protect all our rights under the US constitution.