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Reports

The Slaughter Rules

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Posted on Jan 31, 2007

By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON—They’ve done the easy things. They’ve banned the junkets and the free meals and the hard-to-get tickets to sporting events and a few other lovely self-indulgences that lawmakers on Capitol Hill had come to consider their very own entitlement programs.

Democrats who now control the House of Representatives, having wrested it from Republicans whose “culture of corruption” became a rhetorical cudgel during last fall’s congressional campaigns, could, pretty much, stop tightening up. No doubt some of them would very much like to. But not the woman whose job portfolio includes setting the rules under which House members must conduct themselves.

“Believe me, if there’s a truism on earth, it is that we are not finished,” says Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. “We’ve passed those things first to deal with the most egregious things and to keep our promise to the American public. But we don’t consider—any of us—that we, by any means, have done all we need to do to clean up and make the process fair.”

She delivers the challenge in her soft Kentucky accent, undiminished through years of living in upstate New York and in Washington, where her constituents from the region that surrounds Rochester and Buffalo first sent her in 1986. She says it without guile, as if this pledge is not a political sound bite but a subtle nudge to her peers.

After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Slaughter is the most powerful woman in a chamber fairly bursting with newly empowered women. She chairs the Rules Committee, the panel that sets not only the rules of the House but the terms under which all legislation is considered. Nothing gets to the floor for a vote without first passing through Rules; no amendments may be offered without its sanction. And nothing is expected to leave the confines of the panel that would somehow embarrass the majority.

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During the dozen years of Republican reign, the Rules Committee became an instrument of autocratic control by which the leadership not only got its way but did so, at times, by keeping rank-and-file lawmakers—in both parties—from even having enough time to read crucial legislation before voting upon it. During Slaughter’s three weeks with the gavel, she’s been responsible for pushing through the Democrats’ 100-hours agenda of popular bills on such topics as the minimum wage and revising the Medicare drug benefit. So she’s become a lightning rod for Republican complaints that the Democrats are using the same highhanded procedures they once protested.

“You know what the beef is? They lost!” Slaughter exclaims, flashing a New York style that she often keeps shrouded in the courtesies of her native South. “And boy, they had a good thing going. I mean, they lost the election and they lost all their power on K Street. ... They lost a lot of free meals, they lost a lot of junkets, they lost a lot of trips. And you know, we came in and so we’re not going to do that anymore.”

And so Slaughter comes back to ethics, a flashpoint for her. Calling for an inspector general of the House to bolster what has been chronically limp ethics enforcement, she goes boldly where the Democratic leadership has thus far tread softly. Pelosi has called only for a bipartisan three-month study on whether there should be some independent enforcement, and Slaughter makes it clear she won’t move forward on her own.

Her gut tells her, though, that the Ethics Committee—members with the thankless task of judging their colleagues’ alleged transgressions—should be disbanded in favor of a panel of retired federal judges. “I think it’s been proven to me over 20 years that it’s extraordinarily difficult to pass judgment on your peers,” Slaughter says. The most recent proof: the outcome of the Mark Foley scandal, involving the former Florida lawmaker’s sexual advances toward male congressional pages. “What they really concluded was ‘something awful happened, but nobody was responsible for it,’ ” she says of the Foley case.

Now Slaughter is responsible for restoring the idea that lawmakers have a personal responsibility to keep themselves, well, responsible. She doesn’t believe that just tightening rules or even enforcing them more vigorously is the long-term solution. “We will have an ethical Congress when its members are ethical,” she says. “And if you don’t feel strong enough about that obligation to conduct yourself ethically and honestly, there’s not a whole lot we can pass here to make you do it.”
   
Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at symbol)washpost.com.


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By chuck hillestad, February 1, 2007 at 12:08 pm Link to this comment
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Talk is cheap.  I’ll believe it when I get to read the law as passed and see some actually punished for violations.

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By mite, February 1, 2007 at 9:52 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

You as a Public Official, who has Sworn an ‘Oath of Office’, to defend, Protect, and Preserve the Constitution for the united States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, as well as the people, and Honor it as the Supreme Law of the Land; defined by law one owing Allegiance to the united States in your position of Public Trust is the key for Congress.

Your failure to honor your ‘Sworn Oath of Office’ fullfills the requirements of an ‘Act of Treason’ as cited in the united States Constitution, (Article II, Section: 4, Article III Section 3)to wit: “in levying war against them [the States and “We the People”], or, in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

TREASON, by law, is punishable by the Death Penalty.

Thus, any violation of one’s ‘Oath of Office’ by those Sworn and ‘PAID’ to Honor the Constitution for the united States of America, is an overt act of treason against “We the People.”

Such acts are in contempt of the law, affecting other Public Servants who may ‘go along-to get along,’ leading to the loss of confidence in government and eventual corruption in Government. If lawlessness continues un-reported and un-punished, tyranny becomes king and Government the Master.
http://www.wtpconstitutionalactivism.org/form-noticetreason.htm

This Congress (110th) and the past 93 sessions of Congress since 1913 are guilty of ‘Treason.’ How you may ask? On December 23, 1913 Congress and President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Act. This is a direct violation of the Constitution-Bill of Rights,this turned over control of the nations ‘CURRENCY’ coin and value of it too a ‘Private’ group of individuals ‘Domestic’ and ‘Foreign’ bankers. To enforce collection of Federal Reserve Notes and the destruction of the peoples ‘God and Constitutional Rights; Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness’ by these ‘Private’ bankers the Internal Revenue Service has declared ‘WAR’ against ‘the People.’

The 16th Amendment(IRS)as ruled by the Supreme Court did ‘not’ give Congress any new tax laws to collect taxes against our ‘LABOR’ or ‘INCOME TAX.’

So when this Congress talks about ethics, values, let them talk about ‘TREASON’ against ‘the People’ and the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Search http://www.video.google.com and enter into the search engine: freedomtofascism, and theft-by-deception.

http://www.supremelaw.org/sls/31answers.htm, is an excellant reference to answer any questions about the ‘TRUTH’ about Income Tax and the IRS.

God Bless us all and this Republic.

mite

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By 127001, February 1, 2007 at 6:02 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Slaughter says: “Her gut tells her, though, that the Ethics Committee—members with the thankless task of judging their colleagues’ alleged transgressions—should be disbanded in favor of a panel of retired federal judges. “I think it’s been proven to me over 20 years that it’s extraordinarily difficult to pass judgment on your peers,...”

I’m one of the first to stand up and say these agencies, associations, and groups (including the legal community and courts) can’t objectively police themselves. It’s a fast track to corruption.

So how feasible is for this to happen, and what route would be required for it? Sounds good, and a hopeful sign, but I won’t trust it till it happens and shows it works.

Anyone know the hoops they would have to go through to do this, or if they really would?

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