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by Paul R. Hollrah, Lincoln Heritage Institute Senior Fellow
In a November 19, 2006, article (“Democrats Split on How Far to Go With Ethics Law”), New York Times writer David D. Kirkpatrick described a quandary faced by the new Democratic leadership in the House and Senate.
Kirkpatrick writes, “After railing for months against Congressional corruption under Republican rule, Democrats on Capitol Hill are divided on how far their proposed ethics overhaul should go.
“…Their initial proposals, laid out earlier this year, would prohibit members from accepting meals, gifts, or travel from lobbyists; require lobbyists to disclose all contacts with lawmakers; and bar former lawmakers-turned-lobbyists from entering the floor of the chambers or Congressional gymnasiums.”
Now let me see if I understand all this. What the Democrats are saying is that they’ll fight to the death to keep voters from having to show a photo ID before voting, so that tens of thousands of Democrats (dead and alive) can’t vote two, three, or four times in every election, but they want to make it illegal for me to buy my congressman a Big Mac when I call on him in Washington?
They’ll fight to the death to keep voters from being required to dip a finger into a small vial of indelible ink after voting, to insure that each voter votes only once on Election Day, but they won’t let me buy my congressman so much as a ballpoint pen that might stain his fingers?
They’ll fight to the death to keep voter rolls from being purged so that thousands of Democrats who are registered in two or more states will be prevented from traveling across state lines to vote more than once, but if I want to take my congressman on a fact-finding trip to show him some technology that will go a long way toward solving our airport security problems, they’ll want to fine me or put me behind bars?
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned on election night that her party had won a majority of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, she went before the TV cameras and promised “the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.”
So how will Democrats explain John Dingell (D-Mich.), a dedicated opponent of U.S. energy self-sufficiency, as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee? How will they explain Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who once had a homosexual prostitution business run out of his Capitol Hill residence, as chairman of the Financial Services Committee? How will they explain Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), perhaps the most bitterly partisan member of Congress, as chairman of the House Government Reform Committee?
How will they explain John Conyers (D-Mich.) – who uses his congressional staff as indentured household servants – as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee? How will they explain Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee? Rangel has already said that he will allow George Bush’s across-the-board tax cuts, including tax cuts for the middle class, to expire. How will they explain Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), a former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan, as President Pro Tem of the United States Senate?
And while they’ve stripped Congressman William Jefferson (D-La.) of his seat on the House Ways & Means Committee after the FBI found $90,000 in marked bribe money stored in his refrigerator freezer, and while they’ve removed Congressman Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) from the House Ethics Committee after it was learned that he had used his position in Congress to enrich his political supporters, they have yet to find the courage to remove Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-Ohio), a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus, from the House Ethics Committee, even though a new study indicates that she has taken more lobbyist-paid trips than any other member of Congress.
When Republicans were in the minority for forty years, they conducted themselves as if they were the minority. They voted with Democrats when they thought they were acting in the national interest, and they opposed them when they didn’t. But from the day Democrats became the minority in January 1995, they’ve acted purely as obstructionists.
Yes, Republican leaders in Congress are guilty of betraying everything that conservatives and Republicans stand for and the people have delivered them a well-deserved spanking, but the Democrats named to top leadership positions in the new Congress are not the kind of people one might expect to deliver “the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.” When the voters went to the polls on November 7 they were looking for “a new direction.” They were not looking for a more potent brand of sleaze.
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