Three years after promising "most ethical congress ever" not one lawmaker punished under Democratic ethics rules
By Mark Hemingway, The Washington Examiner (Beltway Confidential), January 11, 2010
11 Jan 2010 // Shortly after Democrats took control of the House and Senate in the 2006 mid-term elections, Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi famously made big promises about congressional corruption. "The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," she said.
Well, three years later, Democrats have yet to punish a single member of Congress for ethical violations. USA Today reports [1]:
Nearly three years after Congress approved sweeping ethics rules to "drain the swamp," as incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, no member of Congress has been punished for wrongdoing.
In that time, allegations of sexual misconduct and financial impropriety have been lodged against lawmakers. The most serious rebuke in the past year: a "letter of qualified admonition" to Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., after the Senate ethics panel concluded he misled lawmakers and inappropriately offered to raise campaign funds for then-governor Rod Blagojevich as Burris sought the Senate appointment. "Three years later, it's the same old, same old," said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/43842
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-10-ethics_N.htm
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