Pelosi vows to toughen ethical guidelines
By Edward Luce in Washington
Published: December 14 2006 22:03 | Last updated: December 14 2006 22:03
Nancy Pelosi, the incoming Democratic speaker of the US House of Representatives, on Thursday promised to “drain the swamp that is Washington” by introducing stronger ethical guidelines when the new Congress convenes in early January.
Ms Pelosi, the first woman speaker in America’s history, laid out her party’s so-called “six for ’06” agenda – six promises on which the Democrats campaigned during the mid-term congressional elections.
These included measures to strengthen homeland security, a rise in the federal minimum wage, reduction in college fee interest charges for the middle classes, a reversal of Republican tax breaks for oil companies, a reduction in prescription drugs prices for seniors, and measures to protect Social Security from privatisation.
These would be accomplished in the first 100 legislative hours of the new Congress, which convenes on January 4.
Ms Pelosi, whose party campaigned against the incumbent Republicans’ alleged “culture of corruption”, also announced a new bipartisan committee to explore setting up an external body that would enforce congressional ethics rules.
In addition she said Congress would work five days a week – compared with less than four days in the allegedly “do-nothing” outgoing Congress – and the Democrats would extend legislative courtesies that had been denied them since 1994, when the Republicans took control of the House. “It is a new direction,” said Ms Pelosi. “It is what they [the electorate] sent us here to do and we will do it by making this the most honest and open Congress in a spirit of integrity, civility and bipartisanship.”
Even as Ms Pelosi was setting this out, there were growing fears the Democrats could lose their recently won 51-49 majority in the upper house following a brain operation on Thursday morning on Tim Johnson, the Democratic senator for South Dakota, who suffered something close to a stroke on Wednesday evening.
South Dakota is run by a Republican governor, who would have the power to appoint a replacement until the next election in 2008 were the senator to die or be incapacitated.
Democratic strategists in the house are acutely aware that their party has only a short window to set out a new agenda before the 2008 presidential elections begin to lead Washington’s preoccupations.
Bill Clinton, the former president, described the election results, which analysts say were driven primarily by dissatisfaction over the war in Iraq, as having given the Democrats a “chance, not a mandate”.
Ms Pelosi has sought to damp expectations that she would launch aggressive investigations into President George W. Bush’s alleged manipulation of intelligence to justify invading Iraq but she promised Democrats would restore strong legislative oversight of the executive branch of government.
ft.com |
