Real Ethics Oversight?
Today's (free online) WSJ article on lobbying reform goes beyond the laundry list of restrictions: meals, corporate jet use, former members on the floor during votes, trips to Scotland to research golf and globalization, etc and looks at the broader question of how will these new rules be enforced?
The current system of self-policing through the House and Senate Ethics Committees is strained if not broken. Beginning in the mid-1990s there was a truce period in which neither Democrats nor Republicans were investigated for potential ethics violations. The truce made Congress an investigation-free zone for years, until the Delay-Abramoff scandal became too big to ignore.
Is it hoping for too much to think that the ethics committees will take a more robust stance in this new Congress and enforce the new and the old rules? Or, is it time for an "Independent Office of Public Integrity" empowered to investigate members of Congress, as well as regulate lobbying. As you would expect, Congress is moving very slowly towards creating an oversight body with jurisdiction over, well, Congress:
House and Senate leaders are mulling creating an office to monitor lobbyists' disclosure reports, or enhancing the powers of existing offices to take on that job.
But so far, neither the House nor the Senate proposal would allow independent scrutiny of the actions of lawmakers themselves. The job of investigating and disciplining them would remain in the Senate and House ethics committees...
...Ms. Pelosi earlier this year proposed enhancing the powers of Congress's inspector general's office to handle disclosure reports by lobbyists. But it didn't extend that office's jurisdiction to ethics allegations against members of Congress. Aides say she is now considering backing the idea of a stronger independent office.
- Aaron Banks's blog
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