What Type of Accountability?
Oct 19th, 2009 • Posted in: What They're Saying
“For a long time, matters that should have been investigated were just ignored, so we’ll have to see what type of accountability we have now.”
– Fred Wertheimer, former president of Common Cause and current president/CEO of Democracy 21, talking to the New York Times about the slow pace and absent punishments by congressional ethics committees.
The Times notes that the House and Senate both rushed to embrace strict ethics enforcement two years ago after the Jack Abramoff scandal. “Since then, however, no member of Congress has been censured, the toughest punishment short of expulsion, despite a number of recent scandals involving sexual impropriety, financial dealings and conflicts of interest. The record illustrates how Congress has struggled to police itself after years in which its ethics committees were often derided as ineffectual.”
The last formal censure in Congress came in 1990, notes the paper, despite the gravity of the Abramoff affair and other scandals involving members of Congress, including Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.), Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), John Ensign (R-Nev.), Mark Foley (R-Fla.), William Jefferson (D-La.), Charles Rangel (D-NY), and David Vitter (R-La.).
Source: New York Times, Oct. 17.
For more information, see related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 12.
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