The pledge signers go to Washington and change is in the air
It’s still hard to believe that all this change is imminent in Congress. Election day is one of the few times when politicians answer directly to their employers –the public.
Can you handle more good news? We can look forward to a new Congress with 96 signers of the Voters First Pledge, which called for lobbying and ethics reforms as well as public funding of elections, and over a hundred members who supported campaign finance reform laws in the past.
As I said here, we expect strong lobbying and ethics reforms from the new Congress, but we are also pushing for a critical improvement to the Pelosi proposal — an independent enforcement authority.
This is critical to whether the rules will continue to matter.
Just as in 1994, corruption is not a partisan issue — it happens whenever power is concentrated in the hands of few. For this reason, strong rules are nothing without a meaningful authority to enforce them.
It turns out that the editorial boards for the New York Times and the Washington Post agree with us. And anyone who can should mention to Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) that a ban on privately-funded travel doesn’t seem so "childish" anymore.