Congressional Ethics....blah...

From International Herald Tribune:

Duke shames the capitol
The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2005

When Representative Randy Cunningham confessed to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes from government contractors, he shed tears before the cameras and vowed to atone. That could take some time. Cunningham, a California Republican known as Duke, had been greedily accepting gifts for years from military contractors - including bribes that helped pay for a yacht, a Rolls-Royce and such luxury antiques as a Louis Philippe commode. When he reciprocated with scores of millions of dollars in government contracts, the public paid the bill. It was a symbiosis between an ethically challenged lawmaker and easy-money boosters that might still be under way but for the fact that San Diego newspapers discovered a suspicious home sale by the congressman that concealed one payoff.

It was federal prosecutors - and certainly not any congressional ethics monitors - who followed the rent-a-lawmaker trail. As Congress mulls over the larger lessons of the Duke's demise, it should begin with the House's ethics process, which has been shamefully locked into immobility for the past year while scandals have arisen as predictably as the new moon. The Republican majority has already seen its leader, Tom DeLay, indicted. The influence-peddling schemes attributed to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff are said to be unraveling, with prosecutors reported to be focusing on the dealings of at least a half-dozen lawmakers in both houses.

Where is Congress's resolve to show the public that it can police itself? Something far better than passive denial was writ large in the first sentence of the Contract With America - the campaign tract that helped Republicans take power a decade ago - with its promise "to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives."

Anxious lawmakers - and there should be plenty of them returning from holiday recess - had better consult those old laminated pocket copies of the contract and get on with the bonds of trust. They can start with two obvious reforms: legislating credible controls over the dealings between lobbyists and members of Congress, and repairing an ethics process that now stands as a scandal unto itself.

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