Reid Seeks to Undermine Ethics Legislation
When Jim DeMint asked Harry Reid for his personal guarantee that earmark reforms wouldn’t be stripped from the ethics reform bill, Reid refused. Not only that but he’s now blaming Jim DeMint for stalling the bill. That’s what we know thanks to this NY Times article:
The Senate Appropriations Committee has voluntarily adopted committee rules that would reveal sponsors and dollar amounts for earmarks, but those would not be enforceable on the Senate floor. “He [Reid] wouldn’t agree not to take it out in conference,” DeMint said. “They want to pretend they support earmark reform, but they don’t.”
Reid said he simply did not want to negotiate a conference agreement “piecemeal” in public before the committee even meets. Reid also rejected a DeMint request to immediately change Senate rules and implement the earmark rules for the chamber. Reid said that was a matter to work out in conference.
TRANSLATING REID
When Sen. Reid says he didn’t want to “negotiate a conference agreement ‘piecemeal’ in public”, he’s really saying that he doesn’t want transparency in the system.
This is another typical Harry Reid dance of deception. Reid’s biggest problem is that he isn’t bright enough to pull it off. Reid’s next biggest problem is DeMint himself. Sen. DeMint is a genuine reformer with the determination and persistence of a pit bull.
Amy Klobuchar, once a lobbyist herself but now Minnesota’s freshman senator, has entered the discussion:
Klobuchar, who has made ethics reform her top issue, led a group of fellow freshmen senators Tuesday in announcing an ethics bill that the nine new legislators hope will pass before the looming August recess. “It’s more than just the scandal of the cash in the freezer and the trips to Scotland,” Klobuchar said. Voters, she said, “realized in the past year that the special interests were taking front seat and they were losing out because [of] the way business is done in Washington.”
This is a way for Klobuchar to point to herself and claim that she’s a reformer, which is more than a little disingenuous. Her legislation talks about earmark reform but she knows that David Obey, John Murtha and Harry Reid want to sabotage earmark reform. This is the best of both worlds for Ms. Klobuchar; she gets to tout her reformer ‘credentials’ but she won’t have to worry about living within the constraints of genuine earmark reform.
Why am I not surprised by any of this?
Technorati Tags: Harry Reid, David Obey, John Murtha, Amy Klobuchar, Status Quo, Transparency,
Earmarks, Lobbyists, Jim DeMint, Reform
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
July 26th, 2007 at 2:02 am
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Corruption, Harry Reid, John Murtha, Democrats, Reforms, Special Interests, Klobuchar, Pinnochiocrats | [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Dingy Harry wants to sabotage ethics reform? Gosh, I wonder why? And, apparently, with the full blessing and backing of such ethical luminaries as Tubby, Leaky and the KKK Bird.
Who’da thunk?