Progressive Talking Points 1/18/06

Window Dressing

Yesterday Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Congressman David Dreier, along with Senators John McCain and Rick Santorum, introduced a series of ethics reforms, in an attempt to curb the growing House ethics scandal. Taking a page from the Bush administration’s public relations offensive, “Victory Strategy for Iraq,” a PR blitz that paved over the ongoing crisis in Iraq with a series of speeches aimed at blinding the American public, the Congressmen issued a slew of reforms that sounds tough to the casual listener, but does nothing to attack the real ethics problems plaguing our government.

• The problem is not the lobbyists; the problem is the system created by Republican leaders. The Jack Abramoff scandal is indicative of the culture of corruption that exists in Washington these days. The rules that have been put forth by the current leadership over the past 12 years have allowed lobbyists to enjoy unprecedented power and influence over lawmakers. Important legislation that would benefit the American people has taken a backseat to special interests. There needs to be a change in the way Congress is run to effect any real change in the current pay-to-play system.
  
  
• These “reforms” merely scratch the surface of the House ethics scandal. To prevent another Abramoff-type scandal, Congress needs to enforce rules stronger than what Hastert and company released yesterday. While direct payment of meals or travel would be banned, the proposal contains loopholes that would permit most if not all current practices to continue under the guise of campaign fundraising. The reforms don’t get to the heart of the scandal. The Republican proposals don’t deal with the very real problem that legislative procedures adopted by Gingrich, DeLay and Hastert facilitate trading policy for campaign contributions in backrooms of the Capitol Building. The changes they suggest, while commonsense, don’t go nearly far enough, and are a band-aid approach to an enormous problem.
  
• Comprehensive, structural changes must be made to change the way Congress operates. There are plenty of rules that need to be fixed or enacted, but it will take some tough rule changes to make a difference in the culture that currently exists. Progressives are working towards enacting real ethics reforms that will do away with the conditions that continually allow for corruption and influence peddling to occur unchecked. Congressmen David Obey (D-WI), Barney Frank (D-MA), David Price (D-NC) and Tom Allen (D-ME) introduced a reform plan last year that would fundamentally change the way Congress operates.