Tell your two US Senators to vote YES for full-vote Washington, DC representation

Public Citizen is asking us to call or write our US Senators in favor of having a US Representative for Washington, DC residents. Our more than half a million District of Columbia citizens have been paying federal income taxes, fighting in wars and all of the other things Americans have done over the years, but they don't have a vote in Congress!

Prominent constitutional scholars and former Congressmembers agree that they can legally have their own full-voting Congressmember. Why wait any longer? Please call both of your US Senators at the Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121; or, use Public Citizen's webpage to send them a message. Then email action@citizen.org with your senators' responses. Thank you

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Pork requests flooding Appropriations Committee right now

It looks like business as usual for Washington, DC, as a flood of earmark requests is deluging upon the Appropriations Committee as we speak. Diligence is the word for fiscal discipline activists from several public interest groups.

From Americans for Prosperity's blog:

" We just received this forwarded e-mail from a source on Capitol Hill - it looks like a "massive influx" of pork requests has essentially crashed the Appropriations Committee's site. As a result, they're extending the deadline for pork requests from today until Monday - good news for the porkers, but bad news for the taxpayers:

----- Original Message -----
From: Nabors, Rob
Sent: Wed Mar 19 15:06:17 2008
Subject: URGENT -- EXTENSION OF DEADLINE FOR APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE REQUESTS. PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO APPROPRIATE STAFF.

Dear Member Offices:

As a result of the massive influx of requests being submitted today, the Appropriations Committee website is experiencing unavoidable access and processing delays.

In order to accommodate Member offices attempting to input data, any request submitted by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, March 24th will be considered as having been submitted “on time” for purposes of consideration by the Committee.

Sincerely,

Rob Nabors

Staff Director and Clerk

House Appropriations Committee "

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House Appropriations Chair Rep. David Obey warns President Bush to negotiate or else

From OMB Watch:

QUOTATION OF THE DAY:

If [President Bush] chooses, as he did last year, to say 'sorry, I'm not going to compromise on the numbers,' then there's very little incentive for this committee to do anything except say, 'well, the president's dealt himself out of the game and we will simply have to … wait until a new president is in office who will act like an adult when it comes to negotiating.

-- House Appropriations Chair Rep. David Obey

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Call your U.S. Representative to vote YES for an independent ethics office

Common Cause is asking us to call our own U.S. Representatives and telling them to vote in favor of a new, independent ethics enforcement office. For years, the House ethics committee has been negligent is following up complaints, investigating problems and enforcing ethics laws. This new independent office would relieve Congress members from the difficulties of self-regulation. Please call soon, as the vote to allow the new office will be made as early as Thursday. Thank you; please leave their response to your call at Common Cause.

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U.S. Rep. John Murtha is 2007 Porker of the Year

Well, it's been voted on by you, the citizens at Citizens Against Government Waste-- U.S. Representative John Murtha (Dem.-PA) is the "coveted" (by Murtha) 2007 Porker of the Year!

You saw him throw a temper tantrum and threaten fellow appropriations committee members where his earmarks are often made last May, and voted him Porker of the Month.

But he didn't stop there. Rep. Jack Murtha has long been known inside the Beltway for using threats, power plays, and backroom deals to control spending decisions. There is an area of the House floor known as “Murtha’s Corner,” where the legendary appropriator dispenses earmarks.

Get more of the sordid details of this legendary porkmeister at a webpage devoted just for this "coveted" prize at Swine Line blog.

UPDATE: Judicial Watch's Corruption Chronicles blog shares with us the annual appreciation dinner for Rep. Murtha by the same contractors that enjoy the free federal money known as earmarks:

" To show their appreciation, the contractors hold an annual payback dinner for Murtha at a fancy Washington-area venue. This year’s event (“an evening with Jack and Joyce Murtha”) is scheduled for February 27 at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington. Diners (earmark recipients) will pay $1,500 a person to eat with Murtha and his wife.

Of interesting note is that the invitations to the costly dinner were sent out right before the annual deadline for earmark applications. Murtha ended up getting more earmark dollars than any other legislator in the massive 2008 military spending bill. He secured 48 earmarks for a total $150.5 million. "

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Congressional earmark database complete for FY 2008

Taxpayers for Common Sense has completed its database of fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills earmarks.

Congress inserted 12,881 earmarks worth $18.3 billion into this year’s spending bills, $14.8 billion of which were disclosed by lawmakers. This represents a 23 percent cut in total earmarks from the high water mark of 2005, but a smaller cut than the 50 percent reduction House leadership initially set as its goal.

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Tell your U.S. Representative to restore intent of 2007 Ethics bill

Public Citizen has an email your representative campaign concerning the recent U.S. House ethics committee's guidelines on convention parties. These lobbyist-paid "honor" parties for lawmakers have given undue influence on those representatives when they return to the Capitol to vote. The 2007 Ethics bill corrected this, but recently the House ethics committee ruled against the intent of this new law. If you agree, please contact your U.S. Representative and tell them to have the House use the Senate ethics committee's correct banning of these convention parties. Thank you.

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U.S. Department of Defense contracts with faulty helmet manufacturer for more helmets!

CREW posts on its blog that a sub-standard military helmet manufacturer is nevertheless being contracted for yet more helmets by the U.S. Department of Defense!

6 Feb 2008 // Today, in light of evidence that a company has been outfitting our nation's troops with substandard Kevlar helmets, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees requesting an investigation into a Department of Defense $74 million contract awarded to Sioux Manufacturing.

The New York Times reported that Sioux Manufacturing, which makes Kevlar helmets, has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the company had shortchanged the armor in up to 2.2 million helmets for the military, including helmets used by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense, aware of both the problem with Sioux's helmets and the company's efforts to cover it up, awarded another contract to Sioux a mere 12 days before the lawsuit was settled.

It has astounded me for years the level of incompetence and, frankly, immorality this administration has subjected its own troops, and veterans, to in the face of two ongoing wars.

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U.S. House leadership: start cooperating with law enforcement agencies!

CREW, a public advocacy organization, has posted information about a letter sent today to Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Boehner asking that the House leaders start cooperating with law enforcement authorities pursuing legitimate criminal investigations involving members of Congress.

Leaders of the House have been improperly shielding members of Congress – including former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) -- from criminal investigation and prosecution through an expansive and aggressive interpretation of the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution.

Members of Congress, like all other citizens, can hire attorneys to ensure that their constitutional rights are protected; this is not, however, the job of the House general counsel, hired at taxpayer expense.

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Tell the U.S. House Republican Steering Committee to place Rep. Flake on the Appropriations Cmte.

Citizens Against Government Waste is asking us to help put U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake onto the important House Appropriations Committee. Rep. Flake has been a tireless leader against corruption in Congress, including the unethical earmarks being spent by the billions of dollars each year. If you agree, please write the Republican Steering Committee and urge them to place Rep. Jeff Flake on the House Appropriations Committee.

CAGW has this to say about the dire need to equip this spending committee with fiscally responsible representatives:

Dear __,
Right now, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is seeking to be placed on the House Appropriations Committee. Rep. Flake has been the House’s leading champion for smaller, less wasteful government and has helped spearhead the drive to restore fiscal discipline in Washington.
I urge you, before you do anything else today, to write the Republican Steering Committee and urge them to place Rep. Jeff Flake on the House Appropriations Committee! Rep. Flake has an unblemished record on congressional earmarks, having never requested a single pork-barrel project, and has been a tireless advocate on behalf of all taxpayers. The explosion of earmarks over the 12 years of Republican leadership corresponded with a collapse of fiscal restraint and personal ethics in Congress. While some have argued that the cost of earmarks represents an
insignificant portion of total federal spending, they ignore the outsized role earmarks play as the “currency of corruption” in Washington. They also ignore - at their own peril - how "Bridges to Nowhere" and other poster children for pork undermine the public’s image of Congress.
If Republicans wish to restore fiscal discipline and end the culture of corruption that has consumed Washington, Rep. Flake boasts the credentials to help lead the way. If appointed to the Appropriations Committee, he will help restore integrity to the
appropriations process and refocus Congress’s role on issues of national importance, not on parochial concerns better left to state and local governments, such as bike paths, teapot museums, and peanut festivals.
Time is of the essence. Please tell the Republican Steering Committee to place Rep. Flake on the House Appropriations Committee today!
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Schatz, President

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Many Congressional websites get failing grades

The Gate blog from National Journal has news on the effectiveness of Congress's websites. The news is not good. As the internet grows in importance to citizens finding out about their government, the quality of Congress's websites must follow suit. Here's the post:

January 14, 2008
New Report Gives Congressional Web Sites Flunking Grades
A number of congressional Web sites received flunking marks from the Congressional Management Foundation in a report released Monday.
The report, which evaluated 618 congressional Web sites, gave 18.8 percent of these sites an F, while 22.8 percent received a D. Only 16.8 percent of the sites received an A from the group. The foundation said Web sites were evaluated on how well they incorporate the following factors: "audience, content, usability, interactivity, and innovation."
The analysis -- funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation --seeks to recognize congressional Web sites that successfully use the Internet and to provide practical guidance to all offices on how to improve their Web sites.
The foundation found that "the Senate continues to outperform the House of Representatives on the Web." The number of "substandard or failing committee sites increased to 44 percent, and the percentage of House and Senate committee (both majority and minority) Web sites scoring an 'F' doubled between 2006 and 2007," the group also found.
The report further held that a third of congressional sites do not have a functional search engine, and 57 percent do not contain information about legislative issues of interest to the state.
-WINTER CASEY, National Journal

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Tell your U.S. Representative NO to House Ethics Task Force recommendations

CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) Executive Director Melanie Sloan is encouraging the public to contact their U.S. Representatives, in order to express discontent over the short-sighted recommendations of the the House Ethics Task Force.

In the wake of the 2006 elections, new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Dem-CA) began the process of developing a U.S. House ethics group to support the already in place House Ethics Committee. Unfortunately, as Melanie Sloan points out in her interview on C-Span, the long-awaited recommendations for the new group fail to (1) accept ethics complaints from outside of the House, and (2) subpoena House members for ethics complaint investigation purposes.

If you agree with CREW's Ms. Sloan, please contact your U.S. Representative in support of receiving outside of house ethics complaints from the public, and in support of house member subpoena powers for ethics investigations.

Here is Ms. Sloan's interview on C-Span:

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Tell your U.S. Representative to cosponsor 72 hour online rule for bills

ReadtheBill.org is asking us to contact our U.S. Representatives to cosponsor H.Res 504. This bill would require Congress to post their legislation and conference reports on the internet for 72 hours before floor consideration.

H.Res. 504 would amend the standing rules of the House to update and strengthen the existing three-day rule in the House and close various loopholes. It would replace the obsolete, unenforceable, routinely-waived three-day rule it with the modern, tough, enforceable 72 hour online rule. Unlike the three-day rule, the 72 hours online rule would apply even in the final week of a congressional session, when the worst abuses occur.

If you wish to take action, please contact your US Representative and ask him/her to cosponsor H.Res.504.

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Call your U.S. Representative to co-sponsor the Fair Elections Now Act

Common Cause, a participant public interest group in this ongoing Fair Elections Action Week, has a notice out that the U.S. House now has a sister bill to the Senate's Fair Elections Now Act. Please see this blog's November 12, 2007 post for more information about the senate bill; if you agree to further legislation with this U.S. House bill, please take action at this webpage, or just call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 .

At the end of last week, Rep. John Larson (D-CT), member of the House Leadership and new champion of "Fair Elections" public financing reform, sent a letter to the entire U.S. House asking for original cosponsors of his Fair Elections Now Act, a sister bill to the Durbin-Specter bill of the same name in the Senate.
Larson comes from the newest "Clean Elections" state, Connecticut, which will offer full public funding to candidates for state office who accept spending limits and swear off special interest cash in the 2008 election. He's also someone, like Durbin, who is simply tired of the fundraising arms race and the corrosive influence of big money on our political system.
Months ago we declared this Fair Elections Action Week--with events for public funding of campaigns happening throughout the country--and now there's a key opportunity to push this issue in Congress. We're asking folks to call their representatives and ask them to be original cosponsors of Rep. Larson's Fair Elections Now Act--so please make a call today and help give this bill some momentum and some new supporters! If you don't want to leave your call information with Common Cause, just call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your U.S. Representative's office to leave your message.

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Tell your U.S. Representative NO on national heritage area bill

Kristina Rasmussen of NTU has issued an alert on a U.S. House bill. I believe that now, more than ever, Washington must prioritize its spending on the large entitlements and defense parts of our critical federal budget. If you agree with this alert, contact your U.S. Representative today.

October 23, 2007
******************************************
National Taxpayers Union Vote Alert
NTU urges all Members to vote “NO” on H.R. 1483, which would unnecessarily extend the authorization of nine national heritage areas while creating six new areas. NTU testified against H.R. 1483 in committee, and we’re dismayed to see that the bill has grown in both cost and potential harm since introduction.According to promoters, national heritage areas were supposed to be finite, self-reliant programs. H.R. 1483 defies those notions. The bill would extend the authorization for nine existing areas (expected to sunset in 2012) for an additional 15 years (to 2027). Also, H.R. 1483 comes with a price tag of $135 million (up from a pre-committee total of $90 million). Members should keep in mind that this amount is equivalent to the annual federal income tax burden paid by 33,276 middle-class taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes between $30,000 and $75,000.In 1994, the late Representative Bruce Vento (D-MN) rose on the House floor in support of a heritage area bill and said: “There is a limit to the length of time or the amount of money the Federal Government can be in a heritage area. In 10 years, we are out of there. Then they are on their own. …” Congress should honor his pledge by rejecting H.R. 1483.Roll call votes on H.R. 1483 will be significantly weighted in our annual Rating of Congress.

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Send a message to your Representative and support earmark reform

According to The Hill, House Republican leaders will launch a new offensive in the fight over earmark reform today, seeking to expand earmark disclosure requirements to tax and authorization bills. Currently, only earmarks in appropriations bills are subject to new transparency requirements.

Also know as pork, earmarks are unethically added after a spending bill is already legislated formally. They are often of local interest only, out of the purposes of their underlying bills.

I just sent a small email letter to my U.S. Representative's website asking him to support fiscal discipline and this fight for earmark reform. You can do so also, by finding your own representative with the white widget to the left; just enter your full zip code and look for your U.S. Representative.

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Report names the 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress

CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has released it's third annual Beyond DeLay: The 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and two to watch). This is an opportunity for all constituents (and future voters) to check to see if their Congressmen is on the list.

Reminder: every citizen of the U.S. is a constituent (has representatives in elective offices from the local to the national levels.) Become familiar with yours; I particularly am an active correspondent with my U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators. The white widget on the left panel of this page will take you to your own public servants' websites.

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Bring representation to the District of Columbia

Public Citizen's Congress Watch is running an email campaign asking the public to help bring congressional representation to the District of Columbia. The DC Voting Rights Act would also add a House of Representatives seat to Utah.

September 14, 2007
Dear David,
While we endlessly debate the possibility of democracy in Iraq, our democracy at home remains in question.
More than half a million people live in the capital of the United States without voting representation in Congress. Yes, the citizens of the District of Columbia pay U.S. taxes, fight and die for the U.S. during wartime and yet, shockingly, they have no vote in the Congress that governs them.
A vote to right this wrong is imminent - but we need your help.
A key procedural vote on the DC Voting Rights Act is scheduled for Tuesday, September 18. We must act now to prevent some senators from blocking this bill. If Tuesday's motion succeeds, the Senate could next vote on the bill for final passage. If it fails, an endless filibuster could ensue, killing the bill that the House already passed in pril.
The bill would provide for a seat for traditionally Democratic Washington, D.C., with an additional seat for Republican-leaning Utah, making it a partisan and politically neutral bill.
Citizens in the District of Columbia don't have senators of their own to call, so they need you to stand up for them and our democratic values. Contact your senators today and insist that they allow this important civil rights legislation to proceed to the floor for a vote!
Tell your senators to make history by ending taxation without representation in Washington.
Sincerely,
Angela Canterbury, Public Citizen Field & Outreach Director of Congress Watch mailto:Watchaction@citizen.org

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Our public servants have committed to leadership; they are responsible for it

On September 4, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) faxed a letter to the ethics committee of the U.S. House of Reps., concerning the conduct of Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado. Proof is evident that he intimidated and threatened two of his own constituents in response to their published letter criticizing him.

We reformers receive coarse and uninspired reactions from our government servants when we shine a light on their professional misgivings. This is only a natural human response; never the less, our representatives' commitment to leadership is proclaimed when they run for their coveted public offices. That commitment is manifested in the presence of an ethics committee in their legislative houses.

And, more critically professional is the responsibilities of that ethics committee. The reformer's light shines brightest on those government servants who commit the most leadership. Kudos to CREW, for carrying the torch of reform in their call for action to the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

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The House ethics task force must be consciencious

The Campaign Legal Center's blog has an excellent analysis of our current House ethics task force mission. The force is to recommend any changes to the U.S. House ethics enforcement process, in light of last election season's public outcry against Congress' "culture of corruption."

The point Ms. McGehee makes is that our elected officials must look deep within themselves and find substantive ethics improvements. Ethics is not a band-aid to be slapped on a serious condition. It is a state of consciousness, a realization that professional conduct is a matter of right and wrong.

I went to college at Texas Christian University, and it has bode me well in reflecting on living in this gray-filled world. Yes, there are consequences to human behavior, and that is especially true for our elected representatives in Washington.

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