Ethics Issues Continue to Dominate U.S. Legislative Agendas
Jan 16th, 2007 • Posted in: NewsWASHINGTON
Ethical issues continued to top last week’s news from and about the U.S. government. Among the stories:
- Senate Democratic leaders last week endorsed a new plan to lend more transparency to the practice of “earmarking” — anonymously attaching pet projects to major spending bills. The New York Times reports that the Senate is poised to adopt procedures similar to new rules in the House, which require the disclosure of an earmark’s sponsor as well as the purpose of an earmark. Times reporter David Kirkpatrick writes that the reform “would bring into public view for the first time a practice that last year allowed lawmakers to direct federal money to more than 12,000 pet projects worth more than $64 billion by tucking them into complicated spending bills, often anonymously. Lawmakers tend to use the projects to reward constituents and contributors.”
- The Senate last week also approved a measure stripping taxpayer-funded pensions from members of Congress who are convicted of major ethics offenses such as bribery and conspiracy, CNN reports. But the measure, if approved by the House and signed by the president, would not affect the pensions of current ex-congressional felons such as Randall “Duke” Cunningham, who would continue to collect about $40,000 per year.
- Governors in several U.S. states have put ethics reform at the top of their legislative agendas, according to the Associated Press. In Ohio, newly elected governor Ted Strickland imposed rules limiting gifts, following a series of scandals involving his predecessor, Bob Taft. In New York, governor Eliot Spitzer, in the wake of a probe involving the state comptroller’s use of a public employee as a chauffer for his wife, tightened ethics rules. In Florida, the same theme was echoed as governor Charlie Crist stiffened procedures in the wake of a kickback scandal involving a prison administrator. According to the AP report, all of the governors’ ethics agendas also involve plans for ethics training.
- J. Steven Griles, the former assistant secretary of the Interior Department, has been notified by federal investigators that he is a target in a corruption probe related to former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a report from the Washington Post. The Post says anonymous sources indicate that among the possible charges being investigated is whether Griles lied to a Senate committee probing Abramoff’s dealings. Griles was a controversial figure at Interior, reports the Post, criticized by the department’s inspector general for allegedly maintaining ties to energy and mining companies that were once his clients. Griles had not commented on the charges as of late last week.
- The new House of Representatives, now dominated by Democrats, voted last week to lift President Bush’s restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. But Reuters reports that the vote, 253 to 174, falls short of the number needed to override a promised veto by Bush. Bush and the religious right have vigorously opposed the use of research involving human embryos, likening it to abortion.
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