Missourians for
                    Government Reform

There WAS actually good news brewing in Washington regarding ethics. A permanent independent office was set up about two years ago to investigate ethical lapses in Congress.  The Office of Congressional Ethics is supposed to help nurish the new ethical culture of Congress.  But when the topic is ethics and there’s "good" news, you know you have to balance it out eventually with "bad" news.

That came in the decision Februray 26th by the House Ethics Committee to ignore the investigative findings and recommendations of the OCE.  Seven House member up on serious ethics charges by the OCE were exonerated by their peers.   Just. Like. That.

Oh, silly OCE.  You probably thought you really had some power.  Aren’t independent-panels-set-up-to-investigage-Congressional-ethical-lapses cute at that age!  So wide-eyed!  So precocious!

It really comes down to power struggles.  "Committee on ethics" vs. "Office of Ethics."  Tension between the two is inevitable.  Then what do you do?  What’s the point of an independent "Office" if it’s simply controlled by it’s more powerful and partisan and campaign-money-dependent  "Committee"?  Hmmm, sounds like a referee of some sort is needed….

That’s where leadership needs to come in.   For an independent Office of Congressional Ethics to mean anything, you’ll need ethical leadership in Congress.  Leaders with ethical standards will be able to pull the strings of any overly zealous, and ethically bankrupt committee.  Whitewashing a fair and independent investigation would be impossible unless Congressional leaders allow it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s ethical compass appears to be broken - again, so she allowed it.   Gone is any remnant of her desire to “lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.”  Gone is her pledge about transparency, too…….

And just in case you were thinking of giving the good Speaker the benefit of the doubt, she goes ahead and defends Charlie Rangel THE VERY NEXT DAY on some of the most outrageous abuses of power seen in years even by Congressional standards.

Pure. Balls. 

Stay classy, Madame Speaker.

–John Messmer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Ethics Reform, National Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.