Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation – washingtonpost.com
Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists’ influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.
This really takes some balls.
Efforts to give Bush power to strike individual items from spending bills have been struck down by the Supreme Court, but Senate Republicans insist that the latest version will pass constitutional muster.
They simply wanted political cover for protecting the tide of money that chokes the political process in Congress. Twenty-one GOP senators are up for re-election in the next cycle. I hope to God their opponents beat the hell out of them with this vote. They just handed the Dems a stick to use for bludgeoning GOP senatorial campaigns.
