Paging The House Ethics Committee

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 banking

Matthew 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 banking

A 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.

Doolittle Votes For His Own Interests

Generally when you send someone to Congress the idea is for them to represent their constituents. Not so in John Doolittle's case. When the House voted overwhelmingly for indicted members to be thoroughly investigated by the Ethics Committee, he marked an emphatic 'Nay.' Why would someone that claims to represent his district not vote for this piece of common sense legislation? Probably because he is about to face indictments against him for...you guessed it, corruption.

From The Sacramento Bee:

A Democratic resolution called for the House ethics committee to determine within 30 days of criminal charges being issued whether an investigation of the affected member should be launched. It was approved by a 387-10 margin.

Minutes later, a Republican resolution ordering an investigation of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. -- indicted Monday on federal bribery charges -- was approved on a 373-26 vote.

Doolittle opposed both measures, drawing a harsh rebuke from the political arm of the House Democratic caucus, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It charged that the embattled Republican "refuses to uphold a high ethical standard and take responsibility for his actions.""We want to make sure that that process works the way it was intended," said Ohio Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican leader.

Obviously John sticks with his own, meaning the criminal element in the House of Representatives. Doolittle is currently being investigated for his dealings with convicted felon Jack Abramoff. He recently had federal agents search his home for pertinent information relating to his crimes.

Many corrupt officials are already out of work and in jail, including Bob Ney, fellow Californian Duke Cunningham and William Jefferson will be joining them shortly. It is time for these crooks to be booted out of office. His district can do their part next year by voting for Charlie Brown, who ran against him last year and narrowly lost. I can hardly wait to see Congressman Brown take this filth's place.