Most ethical congress initiates ethics and earmark reform

[JaJae]

Porkbusters is an excellent online resource for pork research. The site looks a bit amateurish, but they have a lot of good information generally link to exact bills, etc.

They released a new article on the upcoming ethics/earmark bill. Here are the details:

* The old version (passed by the Senate) required conference / committee reports to list all earmarks and required the chairman of the relevant committee to distribute the earmark list. But the new version of the bill allows the Majority Leader (as opposed to the Senate parliamentarian, a more objective judge) to determine whether or not a conference report complies with the disclosure requirements.
* The new version removes the requirement for earmark lists posted online to be in searchable format.
* The new version removes the provision that prevented any bill from being considered at all prior to the disclosure of earmarks; now the text only prohibits a formal motion to proceed, which leaves open a procedural loophole that would allow bills to slip through without disclosure.
* The old version prohibited earmarks which benefit a Member, their staff, or their family/their staff’s family. The new version waters that down and only prohibits earmarks that would “only” affect those parties --- which means so long as you can make a case that your shiny new project affects at least one person other than you positively, you’re all set.

This is their way of controlling Republican spending and bringing ethics back to our government. The text of the bill can be found here... http://porkbusters.org/s1_sus_xml.pdf

DeMint (R-SC) responds to this travesty of a bill:

“There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in the new ethics bill, but upon a close look its obvious that earmark transparency reforms have been eviscerated. Senator Reid has given himself and a few committee chairmen the authority to determine whether congressional earmarks have been properly disclosed to the public. My office has confirmed this with the Senate Parliamentarian. Under this bill, the American people would be forced to trust Senator Reid and Senator Byrd – two of the biggest earmarkers in the Senate – to certify earmark disclosure. This bill allows the fox to guard the henhouse and makes a joke of ethics reform.”

Here's a chart as to how they're screwing up ethics reform and earmarks:
Reid and Pelosi are gutting earmark reform

Senate-Passed Bill

Brand New Bill

Prohibits Senators from trading earmarks for votes

YES

NO

Prohibits Senators and staff from promoting earmarks from which they or their families would receive a direct financial benefit

YES

NO

Allows the Senate parliamentarian, not the Majority Leader, to determine if a bill complies with earmark disclosure rules

YES

NO

Prohibits consideration of bills, joint resolutions, or conference reports if earmarks are not disclosed

YES

NO

Requires earmarks attached to a conference report to be publicly available on the Internet in a searchable format 48 hours before consideration

YES

NO

Requires 67 votes to suspend the earmark disclosure rule

YES

NO

Requires a full day's notice prior to attempting to suspend the earmark disclosure rule

YES

NO

Requires all earmark certifications from Senators to be posted on the Internet within 48 hours

YES

NO

The new bill removes all of these requirements.
Coburn also responds:

“Rather than opening the secret chambers of government to the public, this new Congress has opted to change the locks. This bill, which was negotiated in secret, guts key earmark reforms that both houses of Congress approved overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, this process shows that Congress’s 28 percent approval rating is well-deserved,” Dr. Coburn said.

Couldn't have put it better myself Coburn.

[Thorgrim]

Is there a more ethical congress you'd like to point us to...?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Is there a more ethical congress you'd like to point us to...?

When it comes to this subject, perhaps the Congress who passed the reforms the Democrats are slyly taking away? You can basically take your pick at this point. Whatever number is good for you...

[6SpeedTA95]

So democrats are basically undoing all the good reforms that took place the last few years. Good plan!

And how many people know about this? Is the mainstream press going to mention this? No they wont, they'll mention how great the new ethics bill is when it gets passed IF it gets passed and if it doesn't it will be a Republican witch hunt despite the blatant and ridiculous behavior coming from this now democrat controlled congress.

edit one more thing, coburn is a badass

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

So democrats are basically undoing all the good reforms that took place the last few years. Good plan!

And how many people know about this? Is the mainstream press going to mention this? No they wont, they'll mention how great the new ethics bill is when it gets passed IF it gets passed and if it doesn't it will be a Republican witch hunt despite the blatant and ridiculous behavior coming from this now democrat controlled congress.

Fox News and Drudge would never cover a story that would make the Democrats look bad

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

So democrats are basically undoing all the good reforms that took place the last few years. Good plan!

Don't you trust them to police themselves?

[Thorgrim]

Sorry to post from here, but it's the best I could find without wasting a ton of time doing research

Dems to bust GOP filibuster on lobbying reform
by Kagro X
Tue Jul 31, 2007 at 11:56:56 AM EDT
The House is picking up on a long-overdue lobbying reform bill today -- and when I say, "long-overdue," I mean, "obstructed by Republicans."

Lobbying reform has been one of the top priorities in the new, Democratic Congress -- in fact it was the first bill introduced, S. 1, in the Senate. But a funny thing happened on the way to actually passing that reform. Although it passed the Senate on January 18th, by a vote of 96-2 (Coburn and Hatch, if you're wondering), and a reform bill passed the House on May 24th by a vote of 396-22 (1 present -- Hulshof, if you're wondering), no further movement on the bill has been possible. Why not? Because Republicans in the Senate have filibustered the motion to go to conference.

You may recall that the Senate GOP used the same tactic not long ago on the Employee Free Choice Act (which, by the way, the president also threatens to veto, for a bit of belt-and-suspenders Republican obstructionism), as I explained here:

The House and Senate have each passed different versions of the bills, which means the discrepancies have to be resolved in conference. That's just what it sounds like: a conference of House Members and Senators get together and settle on one version -- known as the conference report. Then, that conference report gets voted on in both the House and the Senate, so that each chamber eventually passes exactly the same language.

But because process rules everything, before you actually have that conference, you have to go through the process of setting it up. So for a body -- two bodies, in fact -- that can't execute anything without either having a vote on it or unanimously agreeing to it, that means:


One of the two houses has to vote (or agree unanimously) to request a conference with the other house in the first place;

The other house has to vote (or agree unanimously) to agree to have that conference with the other house;
Each house has to vote (or agree unanimously) to appoint confereesto attend that conference.
And that's where things hung up today in the Senate. The Senate's procedural rules make it much more difficult to dispense with these steps than it is in the House, where a majority vote can take care of things. But with the Senate and its rules permitting "extended debate" (i.e., the filibuster), all things -- even simply agreeing to agree to set up a conference to see if the people you agree to send to seek agreement with the House can agree to agree -- require (or can be made to require) 60 votes.

The same story is playing itself out in the Senate with the lobbying reform bill. Yes, the bill that passed the Senate by 96-2. Being filibustered. They voted for it before they voted against it.

So what to do? Well, the purpose of a conference committee is to get representatives of each house together and work out a compromise bill that can pass both the House and the Senate, and then go vote on it, right? So that's just what they did. Sort of.

In a somewhat unusual move that they're calling the "ping pong" strategy, the House and Senate leadership have decided to agree on a compromise version and have both chambers vote on it, only they're not doing it in a setting they're calling a conference committee. They're just deciding to do it. So there's no motion to go to conference needed. Instead, they'll just send the same exact bill to both the House and the Senate, and "ping pong" it with exactly the same language between both houses.

In the House, debate begins and a vote is expected today. The bill will come to the floor under suspension of the rules, an expedited procedure usually reserved for non-controversial bills. That procedure requires a 2/3 majority to pass a bill (which shouldn't be a problem, considering the last House vote totals on lobbying reform), but it also has the advantage of disallowing all amendments and motions to recommit on the bill, which will protect it from being changed in any way and thereby blowing up the "ping pong" strategy.

In the Senate, of course, the bill would be subject to filibuster, as usual. But again, this will be pretty close to the measure which passed the Senate 96-2 back in January. Filibustering a motion to go to conference is one thing. That's pretty obscure. But filibustering the bill itself is something the Republicans haven't been willing to do yet. They may yet find it in them to do so, even after their overwhelming support in January, but hey, there's only so much hypocrisy you can prevent, you know?

Republicans, of course, are crying foul. But honestly, there's very little difference between a regular conference and this procedure -- especially given the way Republicans used to handle conferences when they were in control. During their years in the majority, Republicans would rather routinely exclude any Democratic representation from the conference committees, anyway. That made GOP conferences the functional equivalent of the "ping pong" strategy, at bottom. They'll still get a vote in both houses, and in the Senate, a chance to filibuster, if they've got the guts.

We'll see if they do.

UPDATE: Back on 7/19, CQ (subscription) said "House Republicans, who have little power to block procedural maneuvers by the majority, say they will try to rally GOP members to oppose Pelosi’s effort to make quick work of another lobbying bill."

So how did they do? They "rallied" a grand total of two Republicans.

Daily Kos: Dems to bust GOP filibuster on lobbying reform

Kind of puts some holes in your story?

[DosEquis]

Pork spending and lobbyists get them elected. Its not amazing that either party is not taking on some REAL reform. Its how they get and keep their jobs. A system of legal corruption if you want to describe it.

[Thorgrim]

YouTube Video

Why no conference? Because a Republican member of the United States Senate wouldn’t let us go to conference. That’s why there was no conference. He stood day after day after day objecting to adopting this important reform package. And, as a result, we couldn’t go to conference. So you can’t complain on the one hand we’re not in conference when it is a Republican Senator from South Carolina who day after day, week after week, objected to doing just that. Mr. Speaker, today is a proud day for this body. And, again, I congratulate my friend, the distinguished Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers. And a dramatic example of how the Congress was elected last November pledging to clean up the culture of corruption is making good on its promise.

Looks like the Democrats are the good guys here?

[JaJae]

Well I'm glad they went day after day after day to prevent this bill from going through. It's garbage and removes all the new ethics rules that were pushed through. It shouldn't even have been on the table let alone pushed through by a bunch of snakes.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Well I'm glad they went day after day after day to prevent this bill from going through. It's garbage and removes all the new ethics rules that were pushed through. It shouldn't even have been on the table let alone pushed through by a bunch of snakes.

I think you're missing the point here, of what is being shown

The reform bill that was passed by both houses by like 90% margins, the one you call good, it was unable to move forward because the GOP blocked any conference meeting, which happens with every single bill

Again, why were there stallings and rumors of changes? Because the GOP was blocking a simple conference meeting, that wouldn't have stripped anything from the bill (because the conference meeting never happened) AND they re-vote on the conferenced bill anyway

The only thing that's a fact here is that the GOP overwhelmingly passed a bill in both houses and then stopped it from going forward, and ate up a lot of Congressional time...which further labels the Democrats as "do-nothing" because of GOP obstructionism

[Thorgrim]

The House-passed ethics reform bill would:

— Prohibit lobbyists and their clients from giving gifts, including meals and tickets, to senators and their staffs. The House adopted a gift ban in January.
— Require senators and candidates for the Senate or White House to pay charter rates for trips on private planes. House candidates would be barred from accepting trips on private planes.
— Require lobbyists to disclose payments they make to presidential libraries, inaugural committees or organizations controlled by or named for members of Congress.
— Bar lawmakers from attending large parties given in their honor by lobbyists at national political conventions.
— Bar lawmakers and their aides from trying to influence hiring decisions by lobbying firms and others in exchange for political access.
— Deny retirement benefits to members of Congress convicted of bribery, perjury or similar crimes.

Some self-described watchdog groups called the measure, which now goes to the Senate, the most significant congressional reform in years.

The bill, drafted by Democratic leaders, would require House and Senate members to disclose those lobbyists who raise $15,000 or more for them within a six-month period by “bundling” donations from many people. It also would bar lobbyists and their clients from giving gifts, including meals and tickets, to lawmakers.

Senators seeking targeted spending projects or “earmarks” would have to publicize their plans 48 hours before the Senate votes on the proposals, and declare their families would not directly benefit financially. The House made similar changes to its rules governing earmarks in January.

House passes ethics bill - Politics - MSNBC.com

So, again, go Democrats