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Incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) could be headed toward a conflict with his home-state Tea Party over the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed through legislation creating the OCE as a new independent layer of ethics scrutiny in 2008, strong-arming many in her party who feared giving an outside body the power to police members’ activities.

All Republican leaders, including Boehner, vigorously opposed the OCE’s creation and tried to defeat the measure in a series of parliamentary tactics Democrats beat back in March of 2008. The bill passed 207-206 after Democratic leaders pressed several reluctant members to vote in favor.

Anticipating its closure, the office's staff director and chief counsel, Leo Wise, has announced that he is leaving for a job with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.

Asked about the OCE, Brendan Buck, spokesman for the majority transition office, said that Boehner will "take a look at current ethics rules" but that ethics "has really not been the focus of our transition efforts." GOP leaders probably won't vote publicly to kill the OCE but will simply quietly defund it next year, said John Wonderlich, policy director of the Sunlight Foundation.

Boehner "has clearly got a big problem on his hands," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "He’s an establishment, country-club Republican trying to embrace the tea party folks without making any of the changes they require."
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Originally posted by b50m:
Agreed Cage. If that is the best it can do, it IS a waste of funds.

How about actual jail time for ethic violations?

You don't pay your taxes for 17 years on your 'vacation' home and see if you don't go to jail.


He was not the first to abuse his office and he wont be the last. Believe it or not Dems and Repubs in the big league will always look out for each other because both side have too much to loose.
More Cage/Jobe b50m:Forum Wiccan or otherwise known as the wicked old witch of waterloo, B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. I have a thread posted about the tea party in Boehners home state EVEN upset about his pull out of the congressional ethics office, But this is part of the deep seated hypocrisy that the right wing radicals exist on.
Representative John A. Boehner, soon to be the Speaker of the House not Speaker of the House yet, has pledged to fly commercial airlines back to his home district in Ohio. But that does not mean that he will be subjected to the hassles of ordinary passengers, including the controversial security pat-downs.

As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate.

Ethics reform gives me a Boehner.


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