Now that the Democratic party is back in charge of the House, they are supposed to start holding up the body to ethical rules that were set a long time ago. The Republicans ditched all rules that could possibly be unfavorable to them while in power, so now it is time to reverse course. Today's example comes from Congressman Steve Chabot of Ohio. He is trying to help Jim Oberweis (R-of course) to beat Bill Foster for Dennis Hastert's old seat in Illinois. Now how would he go about doing that?
From DailyKos:
From: Lillibridge, Matthew
To: [redacted]@mail.house.gov; [redacted]@voinovich.senate.gov; [redacted]@brown.senate.gov; [other names redacted]
Sent: Fri Mar 07 13:04:29 2008
Subject: FW: Phone bankingMatthew J. Lillibridge
Congressman Steve Chabot (OH-01)
129 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2216
Fax: (202) 225-3012
To sign up for Congressman Chabot's Newsletter, Click Here http://www.house.gov/...
-----Original Message-----
From: [redacted]
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 12:12 PM
To: Lillibridge, Matthew; [other names redacted]
Subject: Phone bankingA last minute plea, if you have interns sitting around today, please send them over to the RNC room B2 to phone bank for Oberweis in IL-14. Staff, etc. will be making calls all day up until 9 tonight. The phone bank will open tommorrow (Election day) at 9am and end at 7pm.
Feel free to forward to friends on the Hill etc.
Um, that would be a major no-no and considered unethical in accordance with the rules of our House of Representatives. The author of the email, Lillibridge, works for Congressman Chabot and since his email recipients work in the House as well, that makes his email unethical because the use of Congressional databases for electioneering purposes is, well, you can figure that one out.
So what can we do? You can let the members of the Ethics Committee know how you feel, write your own Congresscritter and especially help Bill Foster reclaim the 14th district of Illinois in order to put an end to crap like this. He doesn't have the unethical support of the GOP Congressional caucus, so why don't we assist in a more legitimate fashion. Tomorrow is Election Day and he needs all the support he can get.
|