Senate Republicans Block Ethics and Lobbying Reform Bill

Submitted by Aaron Banks on 1/18/07

Yesterday, Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) inserted a "poison pill" amendment into the bipartisan supported Senate version of the lobbying and ethics reform bill, making immediate passage virtually impossible.  And Majority Leader Harry Reid is livid:

"It's as obvious as the sun coming up somewhere in this world that they tried to kill this bill," a furious Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last night in an interview. "And all 21 Republican senators up for reelection are going to have to explain how they brought down the most significant reform ever to come before this Congress. They brought this baby down."

Comments

Submitted by Aaron Banks on 1/19/07.

Your allegation that "The sole reason Democrats won't pass the bill is because it will require giving the currently sitting Republican president a line-item veto" is factually inaccurate.  In the 1990s, Bill Clinton asked for and received a line-item veto from Congress.  If your theory on partisanship is correct, then Democrats would have voted en masse for the line-item veto then.  They did not.  In the Senate, 28 Democrats opposed the line-item veto, while only 19 supported it.  In the House, Democrats opposed it 129-71.

The reason most Democrats, and some Republicans, oppose the line-item veto is very simple: the US Constitution.  Specifically, Article 1, Section 1, which states:  All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.  The Founding Fathers were very clear in their support for the separation of powers principle.  That's why they stuck it in the very beginning of the document, immediately after the preamble.  From 1.1, we get the nondelegation doctrine, which prohibits Congress from delegating its lawmaking power to other branches, like the executive.  After all, if the President can rewrite the laws by crossing out parts he doesn't like, why bother having a Congress at all?  And that's basically what the Supreme Court said when they ruled 7-2 to strip President Clinton of the line-item veto in William J. Clinton v. City of New York.

In all likelihood, any new line-item veto would be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and Senate Republicans know that.  And while I'm pleased that Republicans are suddenly worried about profligate spending - though they didn't seem to be bothered by it in the 109th Congress - they can rest easy, as Democrats have already eliminated earmarks for FY 2007. 

Unconstitutional and redundant, the line-item veto amendment was about blocking lobbying and ethics reform that threatens the cozy relationship between Republicans and K Street.  Nothing more, nothing less.