Bipartisanship Alive and Well on Capitol Hill

Hmph!! Not that I expected anything different but a Senate Panel has rejected legislation for an independent ethics panel.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted 11 to 5 to defeat a proposal by its chairman, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), that would have created an office of public integrity to toughen enforcement and combat the loss of reputation Congress has suffered after the guilty plea in January of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Democrats joined Republicans in killing the measure.

To be honest, I don't know the details of this plan, although Allison Hayward volunteered to serve on the panel, and to be honest I would too. But, assuming this panel was created, it was sure to have no real budget, no real investigative power and certainly no real enforcement power. There is simply too much at stake for Congress empower an independent panel to conduct ethics enforcement.

Interestingly, an independent ethics panel may actually face a constitutional challenge as the Constitution in Article I gives the power to discipline and regulate its members to the House of Representatives and the Senate. The question would be whether delegating the duty to a third party would be proper. One the one side, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that the Senate may try and impeached judge using a committee to make recommendations to the full Senate. Thus, it may be possible that the Court would approve the creation of an independent panel. Furthermore, the Court could just declare the matter a non-justiciable matter for Congress to handle (probably a more prudent course of action).

But the death of this measure should come as no surprise. In reality, most members of Congress, Senators and lobbyists operate above board and in the clear. As the Wahsington Post story points out, current ethics reform legislation that has any chance of success is based on better and more timely disclosure. Such enforcement focused measures have a more realistic chance of passage and don't really impact matters related to constitutional rights or the privileges of Members.

Of course, the greatest disclosure rules in the world mean nothing if violators can't be punished. To be certain, any bill Congress passes needs to include penalities for late or non-compliant filing of reports, either by lobbyists or by the Members themselves. Without any such provisions, any ethics reform bill is likely to be nothing more than a paper tiger.

Over time, though, the American voters have a pretty good sense of when politicians have become corrupt beyond repair--and we may be approaching such a time now. However, it is nice to see Congress work together on something--even if it is something they should have voted in favor of rather than defeating.