Congress, Politics, Society

Members of House Black Caucus Move To Strip Authority From Office of Congressional Ethics

With ongoing corruption in Washington and years of congressional scandals over free trips, gifts, and special dealing, many of us (here) have criticized the Senate and House Ethics rules as primarily serving to protect rather than prosecute members for wrongdoing. Yet, this week nearly half of the Congressional Black Caucus has moved to rollback on recent ethics changes after a number of its members, including high-ranking Charlie Rangel (D., NY) were investigated for violations. Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, and 19 fellow caucus members have submitted a resolution reducing the powers of the new independent Office of Congressional Ethics.

Members appear particularly aggrieved by the transparency rules that allow the public to see who is under investigation and why they are under investigation.

The office is a purely an advisory board to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and is run by non-members.
Fudge wants to be able to stop the committee from making information public and allow members to seal records of the office in cases found to be meritless. Critics charge that cases are routinely thrown out because of the loopholes in the ethics rules created by the members themselves and that the constituents should know about any such allegations of wrongdoing by their members. It would also make it more difficult to start investigations.

For the full story, click here.

14 thoughts on “Members of House Black Caucus Move To Strip Authority From Office of Congressional Ethics”

  1. Everyone’s all for improved ethical standards until they get to face the standards themselves.

  2. mr.ed,

    “They’re almost all prostitutes.”

    You have a keen eye for (K) Street walkers.

    Isabel,

    I’m thinking they don’t care how it looks. Just another sign the government formed for We the People is taking its orders from corporatists/fascists instead of the rank and file citizens.

  3. Wow, don’t these people realize how this looks? It’s insane. No wonder Clyburne didn’t vote for it. Harlem will never get rid of Rangel.

  4. I believe you meant “high-ranking Charlie Rangel,” instead of “high-raking Charlie Rangel.” Perhaps not.

  5. I used the demographic stats to illustrate why she’ll be in office in perpetuity. Party immaterial. They’re almost all prostitutes. Remember that representatives have to raise $20k a day to campaign every two years. Now, who do you suppose has that kind of money to tap? It’s the Golden Rule: Those with the gold make the rules.

  6. Of course, typically anything that Democrats, and particularly “black” Democrats, do would be rabidly opposed by the current crop of disingenuous Republicans. Somehow, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the House would strongly support this…

  7. Fudge is my Congress rep. She’s largely ineffectual, was mayor of a sinking majority black city with awful schools and rising crime, and plenty of conflicts with the majority white police and fire depts. She runs basically unopposed because of the high black population in our district, located in a largely Democratic county.

  9. Ha! “Ethics” and “Congress” in the same sentence … too funny! It makes me giggle my rear off knowing that Congress even HAS the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct – and to have the Office of Ethical Standards? That’s RICH!

    I hope they have machetes so they hack their way through all the over-growth and cobwebs in order to gain access to these offices.

  10. The senate seems to have already been there and done that.

    Some of the members there who are overseeing the Gulf Oil Disaster have received, this month, donations from Halliburton, one of those “persons” being investigated.

    Meanwhile the feds yesterday granted a new permit to drill offshore not too far from the Deepwater Horizon out of control catastrophe.

    Ethics?

    http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/06/bleep-goes-on-land-ho-3.html

  11. The fact that black caucus member Jim Clyburn, House Majority Whip, did not endorse this means it is going nowhere.

  13. Kawame is in the custody of MDOC and worked for Compuware for 18 moths. He had yet to make a sale. For 18 months…..then the bribery charges got to him and the attorneys involved in the city of Detroit corruption trial. But this may not be as good as the city of Dallas Corruption trials and now the Constables elecyed in Texas.

  14. Well ok, just ask Cheeks-Fitzpatrick and her son how ethics charges work?

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