Dear Senator:
The
new Congress deserves credit for quickly and strongly responding to the
scandals of last year by passing sweeping changes to the rules that
will reduce the special access of wealthy and powerful interests in
Washington. It was a critical first step.
We now urge you to
finish the job by supporting legislation that will ensure that the new
rules will be adequately enforced. Today, we ask you to be a
co-sponsor legislation introduced by Sens. Lieberman, Collins and Obama
to enforce the rules.
Jack Abramoff’s fall from power cannot be
credited to an aggressive House or Senate ethics enforcement process.
He was turned in to the Justice Department by a competitor turned
whistle-blower. After the initial details of the case came out, the
public saw no action from the House and Senate Ethics Committees.
There was no evidence the committees initiated any probe nor asked any
questions nor made any attempt to see if members had violated the rules
and the public trust. The House Ethics Committee was so paralyzed they
failed to even convene a meeting for most of the 109th Congress.
The
current system is broken. Overseeing one’s own colleagues is difficult
under any circumstances, but oversight in a charged partisan
environment like the U.S. Congress is, as we have now seen,
impossible. This is not to say that members of Congress are any less
capable than others to self-police, no one self-polices well. In the
Executive Branch there is an Office of Government Ethics. Businesses
have outside auditors. Disciplinary boards for lawyers and doctors have
strict rules regarding conflicts of interest. Congress needs
independent and professional oversight and enforcement of the rules.
Under
the bill, Congress would still maintain final responsibility for any
sanction against a member. The oversight office would receive
complaints and have authority to investigate where evidence suggests a
violation has occurred. The importance of the office is that there will
be an impartial, nonpartisan review of the complaints.
While
some have expressed concerns about the filing of frivolous complaints,
the change actually offers members better protection against false
accusations. Current practice is for outside groups to send up
unofficial and public ‘complaint’ letters with accusations that go to
the ethics committees but are never resolved. In the last election,
some members found themselves answering questions about those
unresolved accusations. The proposed system would establish a set
amount of time for handling complaints and to determine if a complaint
was frivolous. Members would then receive notification from a
nonpartisan, independent entity testifying to the fact that there was
no foundation to baseless attacks.
The ethics and lobby reform
bill adopted with almost unanimous support closed many of the loopholes
that have allowed undue influence of powerful lobbyists. To ensure
that the new rules are more than paper tigers, Congress must also move
to create outside, professional oversight to enforce the rules and give
assurance to the American people that the new Congress will different
from the last.
Sincerely,
