They Should Do More Than Just Consider It

After the debacle that was the Ethics Committee Report on the Foley mess, it was clear to everyone with a brain that Congress was unfit and unwilling to police themselves. I'm not entirely hopeful that the Democrats got the message, but this article suggests that they're at least moving in that direction.

House Democrats are seriously exploring the creation of an independent ethics arm to enforce new rules on travel, lobbying, gifts and other issues that Democrats intend to put in place on taking power next month.

Senior party officials said Tuesday that Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the incoming speaker, had consulted with Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader, on forming a bipartisan group to examine outside enforcement. The goal would be to have the group report back in the spring.

An independent Congressional watchdog, if approved, would be a major break with tradition. Some lawmakers say House and Senate members have sole responsibility for policing themselves when it comes to internal rules.

Some lawmakers have said an independent entity could be unconstitutional.

The Democratic officials, who spoke only if they were not publicly identified because the proposal for the new panel was now being presented to lawmakers, said the prominence of corruption as a concern in the elections last month gave new impetus to such an idea.

“With ethics such a big issue coming out of the election, members see a need to think outside the box,” one senior official said.

This sounds to me like something that is coming up from the rank and file rather than down from the leadership. A lot of the freshmen Representatives got into Congress on the corruption issue, and they have a strong belief that government needs to be verifiably clean.

I hope that some bipartisan commission doesn't look into this and release a report that nobody reads, followed by a roar of silence and no legislation. The grassroots needs to continue to push for an outside agency, it's the only way to restore integrity in government.