California Conservative

Hooray to Sen. McCain’s putting together a coalition to eliminate earmarks!!! It’s long past time to get this reform enacted.

Ten senators led by Sen. John McCain took on the Senate’s much maligned practice of inserting individual members’ special projects, often without the knowledge of their colleagues, into larger spending bills. The “Pork-Barrel Reduction Act,” introduced Thursday by eight Republicans and two Democrats, is the latest in a rash of proposals promoting ways to restore integrity to the political process in the wake of lobbying and ethics scandals. McCain’s bill would allow senators to raise points of order against special projects, or earmarks, that are attached to spending bills without having been approved by the relevant committee. Under the procedure, which also applies to policy changes embedded in spending bills, 60 votes would be needed to override the point of order and keep the provision in the bill.
———-
The measure also would require that earmarks be described in detail and the sponsor identified. House-Senate compromise bills would have to be made public at least 48 hours before the Senate considers them.

I’ve criticized McCain in the past for his campaign finance reform legislation as an attack on my First Amendment rights but I’ve frequently agreed with him on the GWOT, the war in Iraq and on lobbying reform/earmarks. The cliche that “Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant” in the political process is certainly true. It’s long past time that we ‘disinfected’ this part of the political process.

It wouldn’t be a big surprise to find out that alot of senators and representatives are privately grumbling about this bill but I’ll bet that this legislation will pass with nearly unanimous votes in both houses.

On another note, I have to give John Kerry and Ken Salazar credit for some legislation that they’ve co-sponsored. Here’s how the AP describes the legislation’s content:

Sens. John Kerry, (D-MA), and Ken Salazar, (D-CO), introduced a bill that would deny federal pension benefits to members of Congress convicted of bribery, conspiracy or other serious ethics offenses.

I agree with that, too.

Cross-post at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2006 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Domestic Policies, Special Interests, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.