More....This panel almost never fails to disappoint. It tends to be sluggish in its work and supine in its conclusions. But even by its indulgent standards, the committee reached new heights -- lows? -- of fecklessness last week as it brushed off complaints about lawmakers' acceptance of corporate-funded travel.
Most of the focus, understandably enough, was on the panel's "admonishment" -- its feeblest form of discipline -- of Charlie Rangel, the beleaguered and likely soon-to-be-former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel was wrist-slapped because the committee determined that he should have known his Caribbean jaunts with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus were underwritten by corporations, in violation of House rules. The New York Democrat's most serious ethics problems, trifles such as failing to declare income on taxes and financial disclosure forms, are still -- what a surprise! -- under review by the committee.
But the Rangel-centric nature of the news coverage obscured the bigger story: the ethics committee's role as enabler of ethical violations. Remember the furor over lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the lavish golfing trips he furnished for lawmakers? In response to that scandal, Congress tightened its ethics rules in 2007. It barred lawmakers from accepting free travel lasting more than a day if corporations that retain lobbyists underwrite any part of the trip.
Make that supposedly tightened its ethics rules. Last week's report details how a top lawyer to the then-chairman, the late representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), served as a kind of tour guide to help sponsors of a November 2007 conference in Antigua find a way around the new restrictions.
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