True ethics reform

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 — On the brink of regaining power after 12 years, House Democrats said Wednesday that they would move immediately to try to sever ties between lawmakers and lobbyists who figured into scandals that helped Democrats win control of Congress.

Democrats, who campaigned relentlessly last year on the theme of a Republican culture of corruption, introduced the proposed ethics rules as part of a week of
choreography designed to deliver the message that they did not intend to do business as usual in Washington. In some cases, like restrictions on the use of corporate jets, the rules on gifts and travel by lobbyists go further than what Democrats had pledged earlier.

It is very easy to demonize "lobbyists" however two things should be remembered. One is that lobbyists represent people. The lobbyists who bring the case of the oil companies to the attention of congress represent not only the oil company executives but the shareholders and employees as well.

Everybody from the guy in the hardhat working on the drilling platform to the little old grandmother in tennis shoes living on her late husband's pension (pension fund heavily invested in the stock market) and investment portfolio (also heavily invested in the stock market) and social security (dependant upon tax revenue which is dependant on the nation's economic health, which depends in part on the stock market) has a stake in what congress does to the oil companies.

All of these people have an interest in how badly congress screws the oil industry, however they can not all journey to Washington to beg their individual Senators or representative not to steal too much of their money through increased taxation or regulation of the oil companies so they depend on oil company lobbyists to do it for them.

The same thing is true of other organizations as well. For example the NRA represents more than 4 million people who have pooled their money and influence to fight to protect their constitutional right to own and carry firearms.

Even the evil and malignant lobbyists like the Sierra Club and the Brady Bunch are only there representing their moonbat membership's destroy America agenda, as they have a right to do under the First Amendment.

What motivates the new left-wing congress' desire to push lobbyists away is actually the urge to put as many layers of insulation between themselves and the people as possible. The Democrat Party, with just a handful of exceptions, is morphing into a carbon-copy of the ruling socialist parties of Europe. Remember what the president of France said when the French public voted a resounding NO on the European constitution? "France has not rejected the constitution, only the French people have".

The "big D" Democrats are not "small D" democrats. They do not want all those pesky commoners telling them how to do their jobs as they set about transforming the society envisioned by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson into the society envisioned by Jacq Chirac and Dominique de Villepin.

While they know that for the time being they must continue to allow people to continue calling their offices and writing letters and even dropping by for a visit they can take steps to ensure that the public becomes unable to pool their resources into organizations which, by virtue of money and the ability to deliver a block vote, have true clout.

The other thing to remember is that all the perks that lobbyists have to hand out to congressmen would be utterly useless to them if the members of congress didn't have their grubby mitts stretched out grasping for any kind of handout they could get.

The true problem of corruption in congress starts and stops with individual congressmen. The true answer to cleaning up corruption in congress is to have a well defined set of ethics rules and to make expulsion from congress with a lifetime ban on ever again holding any kind of elective office or working on the staff of any elected official or for any government agency the first and minimum punishment for violation of any ethics rule. Remember that is the minimum punishment. The penalties would go up from there through high fines and into long prison sentences which would have to be served in the federal prison system where there is no parole.

Of course no congress will enact laws which subject them to possible loss of office and financial ruin and prison. They are much more comfortable exempting themselves from the laws that they pass to control everybody else's behavior. But that's the answer, if anyone cares.