Washington File

Well it looks like Nancy is taking time to cut frivolous waste in the government. It's about time!

There's an old adage, "charity begins at home." Nancy needs to make herself part of those "tough new rules".

She managed to justify $16,000.00 for flowers for her office! Hmmmm, is she exempt from her own frivolous spending cutbacks?

Pelosi hit the podium like some garden statue fairy waving a wand of values and now the real Pelosi comes to life as a one eyed drooler and the bitch from Buchenwald. I accuse her of Treason.

Iraq is not about the opinions, courage or cowardice of men in battle, but about The United States and its Allies to determine which side of history we want to be on: those who connect to freedom or those who disconnect to achieve tyranny.

Pelosi and the gang have chosen tyranny as our contribution for the Iraqi citizens and worse, she represented herself to our enemies as an American.

The Polish people refused to honor Hitler during the second world war and kept track of their countrymen who betrayed their beloved country. When the war was over, they searched out those traitors and shot them justifiably.

I accuse Pelosi of equal treason against The United States of American, its citizens, its
Military and Our Commander and Chief George W. Bush.

Most Sincerely,

Sally Armiger,
National Federation of Republican Women

Although Nancy Pelosi is not running for President. My vision is that she be drafted to be our Next President of the United States. She is dynamic, much like Marlene Albright. Her face is electrifying. A great lady.
G. Bush is gambling away 21,500 troops in hopes to make up his losses. He has to be a peacemaker, not a war monger. Now he wants to stop funding " Sesame Steet," (PBS.)

No carte blanche use at ones whim of Military air craft or vehicles of any kind for friends and family!

How come with all the fanfare surrounding the need for transparency, special interests, and the Minimum Wage issue is there no media hype concerning Pelosi's involvment with exempting Starkist Tuna's plant in the islands, which is under US domain, and the ONLY location in the world that will be exempt from the minimum wage mandate. Those islands ARE under US domain, and Pelosi line itemed them exempt. Is it because Starkists headquarters is in her district. What's going on Pelosi - money? You are quick to condemn others but where are your ethics?

Why is there no discussion on the part of
the bill which will silence any group of
Americans that number over 500 who try to
contact their representative? Unions and
big business are exempted, but not groups
who give no money, no gifts, etc. If this
isn't a violation of the 1st Ammendent I
don't know what is.

Perhaps due to "adult onset pessimism" I really do find this hard to believe. Congress is playing the part of Lucy with the football and the public is playing the part of Charlie Brown, thinking that he will finally be able to kick the football. Of course you will!

In an attmept to fracture the Excutive Branch of government, the American voter (not the people)have traded one set of parasites for another. The Dems are going to stack the committee chairs with the same old tired Dem Congressmen that were in power in the 90's. A year from now, we will hear the same old bull...those crooked congressmen...!
Wise up America it is now time for term limits and the removal of the Senate and House rules that allow the corruption too continue.

Note the last action on the bill. As of the writing of this article the bill has been stuck in comittee for 9 months and will remain there for a period "to be determined by the speaker" who by all rights will be pelosi herself. This appears to be little more than a PR play by the speaker, and your lack of research helped her do it. Nice work.

neil,
you need to keep in mind the committee is currently controlled by the Republicans, whose leadership never allowed the Pelosi bill to reach the floor. The Speaker is currently Dennis Hastert who also refused to allow it to go forward.

Pelosi's office says it will have "top priority" when the Democratic leadership is sworn.

If it does not go forward quickly then you will be right...it will be a "PR play" by the speaker.

This column will be among the first to point that out should that occur.

henry

Thanks for bringing this article to our attention. I'm thinking it would be wise to submit this to our local newspapers to be published and put on the pressure to have it supported.

If this Congress will pass these "rules",
Americans will relax and begin to believe in government again. Kathleen

Whether this passes or not depends on how long Ms. Pelosi and those on both sides who support her can keep the attention of the notoriously "short-term attention deficit" main-stream American media. This will take a lot of attention to get it past, cause many elected members who think they can defeat it and NOT catch h*ll for doing so, will try their best.

Should be interesting.

The surprising thing to me is that the conduct Pelosi proposes to ban, was in fact possible and taking place! Is it really true that lobbiests had access to the floor of the house?

This bill is long overdue and should be dealt with vigorously.

i am so proud to be an american for the first time in six years. i hope this legislation is introduced, and i hope it passes, because we need to fix the system. and we need to fix it now, before it is so far beyond repair that there is no going back. lobbying and unrelated items on bills are my two biggest complaints about the way our government operates right now, along with bush's beloved signing statements. i pray that this is all taken away while there is a chance to do so.

What's sad is that this stuff isn't already governed by rules. Why is a taxpayer-funded gym being used by lobbyists? Why should travel other than what is necessary for district business be free? Great reporting. This is the first I have heard of these proposals. Guess the American media's fascination with tawdriness got in the way of decent journalism.

Yes indeed....."honesty IS the best policy!"
Congratulations Mrs. Pelosi. Now...could "we the people" get on with the ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY business of impeaching George W. Bush and his puppet administration? They have made huge efforts to destroy the Constitution they swore to protect. They have lied to Congress, and they have lied to the American people. We demand justice!!

Not a bad idea to clean up the cesspool in Washington.

My team of huskies are making preparations to mush our way to save the day!

This would be to good to be true. Politicians are not going to accept these new rules. There's not a politician in Washington DC who would be able to comply. How would they line their pockets if lobbyist couldn't butter them up?

Not to be a cynic, but...

If these new rules were to go into effect the only way to influence legislation would be cold hard cash, preferebly in offshore accounts.

Of course that has never and will never happen, has/will it?

This is just what we need. I truly believe that if you take the money out of the equation, a lot of other nonsense naturally falls in line. And there's something everyone who commented here can do right now: CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND ASK THEM TO SUPPORT THIS ACT. Addresses and phone numbers can be found at http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.html and email addresses can be found at http://www.congress.org

It is my hope that the Democrats push this bill thru and also to open hearing on Haliburton, the oil Co.s, Cheney and so on. We can not allow these crooks to go free.
The Democrats should be able to carry out the business of government and to prosecute those who broke the law within the administration and the Haliburton's in the corporate world.

This is a tremendous step in the direction of openness and accountability. Congress has a long way to go to reestablish itself in the eyes of the American people as a responsible, trustworthy government body. Eliminating current abuses and, even more importantly, taking steps to shield our lawmaking body from the myriad of special interests and temptations towards unethical behavior, is essential in doing this.

I agree with the one of the comments regarding watching the "money mastes" video on Google. All this won't mean a thing until the core issue is addressed...

Nancy Pelosi is two faced. She talked tough before the election, saying that Bush should be impeached. As soon as she is elected and considered to be the next Speaker, she changes her tune and says impeachment is off the table. She is talking tough again, but is this some sort of posturing, or will she follow through. Her new found mission to clean up politics is too good to be true and possibly another slight of hand.

K street is getting a wake up call. Taking the
money and perks out of lobbyist's bag of tricks
will go along way to help bring back fair play
and real democracy.

Wow...I'm a Libertarian and NEVER thought I'd agree with a Democrat. But, since she is a Democrat it makes me take a second look. What are her real motives? My natural inclination is to NOT trust her.

By initiating this my opionion of her has switched 180 degrees. Lobbyists have no business in an supposedly unbiased body. The combination of carrots and arm twisting have been the downfall of many a politico (Duke Cunningham for one) and Lord knows how many questionable acts have passed because of their sneaky influencing.

Well it may not be everything to everybody but its a start in the right direction. Now if only we can get public funding of campaigns to end the politician's need to raise funds perhaps we can really start cleaning up this mess in DC..

As to Rick O'Brien's comments on "sexual pecadillos" of late:
It's interesting that the only sexual matters he seems to think worthy of censure are those of homosexuals, and of gay Democratic members of Congress at that. How teling that he didn't mention Mark Foley, and that he thinks Gerry Studds' 1973 consensual affair with a page is "of late". Let's forget all about the serial adulteries of people like Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, Bob Barr, Helen Chenoweth, Dan Burton - or the "pecadillo" of Republican Dan Crane, censured along with Studds in 1983 for his own affair with a page in 1980.

Wow. I like the idea of an Office of Public Integrity, but what's to stop a President replacing the head of this Office, and the Attorney General, with some born-again golfing buddies and redefining "intregrity"?

America needs to make sure nothing like Bush and his cronies, happens again.

I like it. What about the sexual pecadillos as of late? Why not throw that in there too Ms. Pelosi... The chance of that passing would be about 2%. Barney Frank would throw another infamous hissy fit, and the still warm Studds would roll over in his grave.

I HOME THE MONETARY REFORM IS SOMEWHERE ON THE LIST ,

THE FEDERAL RESERVE NEEDS TO GO ,

WATCH THE "MONEY MASTERS" ON GOOGLE VIDEO

I HOME THE MONETARY REFORM IS SOMEWHERE ON THE LIST ,

FEDERAL RESERVE NEEDS TO GO

Remember fellow net critters. in this country we do not really need the president to pass a law. IF bush veto's such a law (and he probably would) congress can OVERRIDE his veto with a 2/3's vote and pass the law anyway. If we are lucky we might actually see this power USED in the next 2 years. fingers crossed.....

4 US jurisdictions approved IRV see http://fairvote.org this will promote more parties.

Wow,
That almost sounds like democracy. Here's hoping it doesn't get watered down or hijacked (again).

1. The claim that there isn't significant corruption in the Canadian government because of the nature of the Canadian system is silly. There are numerous scandals involving Canadian government officials, just as there are in the US government.

2. Pelosi's proposed ban on lobbying was offerred when there was absolutely no chance it would become law. It will be interesting to see if she make passing her own law a priority now that she is the leader of the House of Representatives, or if her law gets "disappeared" now that the democrats have taken over the government.

will never happen.

Without penalty clause it will have no teeth.

American politics is more corrupt than Canadian politics. Why? Because in the States, lobbyists can buy off individual congressmen to get favours inserted into laws; in Canada, you need to buy off a party, or at least a Minister. Backbench MPs are nobodies, so there's little point trying to purchase their support.

Yes, the root problem is that Americans lack a strong party system like we have in Ottawa.

The canadian government cannot
get the "accountability" legislation passed by our very
political but unelected senate.
Perhaps we could have this US ethics bill cover the canadian
legislators, and senators
so we will have this accountability
,even as our senate postures.
"the time has come"..for these new rules in both the US and Canada.
jen.

What a shame that ethics is not covered under the North American Free Trade agreement.
We could then import some into our Country.

Great little article, how is it with
bush as boss and cheney running rampant
doing stunningly bad deals for americas
in spite of the press that challenges him,
how is it that pelosi will make a difference
i wish the americans would finally take pelosi
one step farther and stand up to these runaway
politicians. i mean, we just have airbus and adscam, it brought down governments.they should
let you talk to us more on cbc morning henry
its more than british updates we want with our tims!

Taking care of the ethics issues regarding lobbyists is only part battle. I wish those who want change well. Unfortunately, I worry that anyone in the US congress who wants to get work done will be quickly sidetracked trying to raise money for the next campaign, which starts the day after the November 7th election. The real challenge and the only real solution, to the corruption problem, is to limit the overall spending allowed on campaigns.

The root of most of the current corruption problems can be attributed the relentless pursuit of funds required to wage the continuous campaign wars that have become a fixture in US politics.

This is exactly what this corrupt government and it's dishonest, mean-spirited,greedy,immoral,self-serving,power-hungry sinners need, a legal guidance to ehtics. The 10 commandments, regardless of their dishonest pretense of being such good Christians,has somehow been forgotten by these vile scum!Good luck to goodness!

Reading about this is a breath of fresh air! This next week leading up to the midterm elections will undoubtedly be met with a a flurry of campaign advertising, finger-pointing, name-calling, and backstabbing. In other words, what we (and sometimes Canadians, as well) have come to expect from our politicians and these elections.

What will NOT be business as usual will be the next Congress should the Democrats manage to wrest control of both chambers (or at the very least, the House). As these things go, history tells us that a Democratically-controlled Congress will ultimately have it's share of embarrassments and the electorate may eventually vote them out of power.

But, with a presidential election two years down the road, I suspect that they'll want to keep their noses clean and, oh yeah, maybe actually make some progress on things like the war, ethics, reducing our ballooning deficit, and so on. They'll need a record to run on if they hope to win back the Executive branch of government in 2008. After this midterm they've (hopefully, God-willing) got two years and one shot; let's make it a good one.

About time.

With this legislation passed, some of the more common ethical breaches will now be well-defined and will have legal consequences.

In particular, the slipping-in of unrelated legislation is a good one. That seems to happen all to often.

Henry, you better get busy spinning this latest gaff from "Lurch" Kerry. John Kerry, who has been called a modern day Primo Carnara of democratic party politics, has stepped in it again and it could cost the dems some momentum if not actual seats. All faithful democrat spinners are hereby called to action to mitigate the damage. Get busy.

Nice to see new regulations being discussed but I am doubtful of the effectiveness of written rules in stemming the creativity of lobbyists. Top lawyers can develop three plus "truthful" meanings out of one sentence and when there is money to be made, there will be people working on bending the rules.

That doesn't mean rules shouldn't be improved where possible but the public should not expect an ethical turnaround unless it genuinely comes from the members themselves which, seems unlikely.

Pelosi, notice there was nothing about Union Activism, it will be ok for unions to organize and spend union dues for their politicans.
Probably a winner for Canada ! eh!!!

Interesting insight on Nancy Pelosi. Lets hope she will be putting back some power to "check and balance" into the one branch of US government.

Thanks,
Kempton
P.S. Great job reporting in the US.