Republican reform Sen. Tom Coburn called the just-enacted ethics bill "a landmark betrayal, not a landmark accomplishment. Congress had a historic opportunity to expose secretive pork-barrel spending but instead created new ways to hide that spending." As for the act's highly publicized new restrictions on lobbyists, Coburn asserted that "the problem in Washington is not the lobbyists" but "members of Congress."There are multiple problems with the bill:
Who polices earmarks?
Coburn objected to the bill taking new policing of pork barrel earmarks away from the Senate's non-partisan parliamentarian and giving it to the majority leader. "That makes the quarterback the referee," he said.
Removing debate on earmarks
There is an audacious change in Senate Rule 28 that covers inclusion in a Senate-House conference report of "extraneous matter" that neither chamber passed. For years at the end of a session, party leaders solicited senators for dozens of their pet extraneous projects to insert in conference reports. However, it would take 67 votes to suspend the rules in the 100-member Senate to enact each such provision. In practice, if a party leader learned of serious opposition by one or two senators in his caucus, he would remove the provision because those dissenters might derail the entire conference report. But the ethics bill's revision of Rule 28 removes that safeguard. That can add to a bill 40 or more such provisions that never really will be debated.
No more transparency
The final version of the ethics bill permits newly required identification of earmarks and posting on the Internet to be waived by either the majority leader or minority leader. They can also waive the new requirement that conference reports be posted on the Internet no less than 48 hours prior to the Senate vote. So much for transparency.
Call the White House and encourage Bush to veto this bill.
There's my two cents.
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