Ethics (tee-hee) reform

[SuperScout]

Ethics Reform: Last week's Senate action saw a minor dispute over the so-called "Reid Amendment" -- not an amendment offered by Senate Majority Leader Reid, but one snidely named after him by some Republican staffers because it would perhaps most affect his and his family's situation.

Another ethics amendment, demanding full transparency of earmarks, suddenly incurred his strong opposition despite using the same language as the Democratic House bill.

Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) offered an amendment to tighten loose anti-earmark restrictions in the current ethics bill by prohibiting senators from requesting earmarks that financially benefit a senator, an immediate family member of a senator or a family member of a senator's staffer. The Senate's earlier version would have exempted more than 90 percent of earmarks from transparency and reporting. In proposing their amendment, DeMint and Coburn were using language identical to Pelosi's reform in the House, and that aspect of Reid's denunciation of the amendment was almost missed entirely by the press.

Reid's four sons and his daughter's husband all have been lawyers or lobbyists for special interests, mostly the real estate, gambling and mining industries. While Reid has declared they are barred from lobbying for their clients in his office, there is little doubt they have taken advantage of their close proximity to a powerful senator. Other members of their firms can lobby his office. It is generally understood in Washington that special interests hire family members in hopes of having more access -- it is a thoroughly bi-partisan phenomenon that has gone on for years. Republican reformers saw an opportunity in Reid's background both to highlight this issue and to take a political shot at the new majority leader.

Reid brought a tabling motion that would have killed the DeMint-Pelosi amendment, but it failed, 46 to 51, with nine Democrats abandoning their majority leader. Two of the nine freshman Democrats -- Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Jon Tester of (D-Mont.) -- voted against Reid.

For such a tabling motion to fail is rare. Senate leaders usually only make such motions when they are certain of success. Equally rare was the motion's aftermath. Normally, when such motions do fail, an amendment is approved by voice-vote, since another roll call vote is considered needlessly repetitive. But an obviously distressed Reid took the floor to hold open the vote indefinitely on DeMint's amendment -- something reminiscent of the tactics used in the House by former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) saved Reid further embarrassment by proposing a minor technical change in the DeMint amendment and claiming victory.

The lesson is that Democrats failed to consider some of the consequences of campaigning on ethics reform. After so much talk about the culture of corruption, they can't be caught opposing serious ethics reforms that are offered by Republicans. In this situation, Reid's positioning on earmark and lobbying reform does not make him look good.