For the better part of 2006, congressional Republicans convinced themselves that the notion of a “culture of corruption” lacked political salience. GOP lawmakers were being indicted and resigning in disgrace, but it was an “inside the beltway” story, they thought. The typical American wasn’t terribly interested.
They were, of course, completely wrong. As Zachary Roth recently noted, “In official exit polling, more voters named corruption as an extremely important issue than any other, including Iraq…. [N]o experts deny that the issue played a much more crucial part in the Democratic win than almost anyone had expected.”
With this mandate in mind, Senate Dems hoped to pass a meaningful reform measure yesterday. Senate Republicans, who might have noticed the midterm election results, had other ideas.
Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists’ influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.
The bill could be brought back up later this year. Indeed, Democrats will try one last time today to break the impasse. But its unexpected collapse last night infuriated Democrats and the government watchdog groups that had been pushing it since the lobbying scandals that rocked the last Congress. Proponents charged that Republicans had used the spending-control measure as a ruse to thwart ethics rules they dared not defeat in a straight vote.
“It’s as obvious as the sun coming up somewhere in this world that they tried to kill this bill,” a furious Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last night in an interview. “And all 21 Republican senators up for reelection are going to have to explain how they brought down the most significant reform ever to come before this Congress. They brought this baby down.”
Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group Democracy 21, added, “Whatever they’re saying, Republican votes tonight were votes to prevent the Senate from enacting major lobbying and ethics reforms to deal with corruption scandals in Congress. I don’t think anyone’s getting away with anything here.”
I hope not.
Josh Marshall summarized this nicely:
Republicans use poison pill to derail ethics reform in the Senate.
No ethics reform unless the Republicans get a line item veto.
Call it what it is. The senate Republicans don’t want an ethics bill. The corruption’s just to sweet for them to let go of.
A quick post-script: if you look at the roll call on this vote, it shows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voting the wrong way on this, joining the Republicans. This was a procedural move — by voting against it, Reid can bring the legislation back to the floor later in the year. Reid supports the bill. Just wanted to clear up any potential confusion.