Remember the ethics issues that made such a difference in last year’s election? The Senate is hoping you don’t.
The Iraq debate appears certain to dominate everything else this week–which is good news for the newly Democratic Senate, which will be (slowly) moving ahead on its ethics and lobbying reform package. The only people paying much attention will be a few hand-wringers on the editorial pages and the good-government types.
That’s one of the reasons that the Senate bill is likely to be far less muscular than what we saw come out of the House, which could have made a real difference (at least until lawmakers figure out ways around it). You can bet Senators won’t be giving up their corporate jets, which are one way I measure whether they are really serious about ethics reform.
