The promise:

Pelosi explained that Democrats should be the party of ethics, that appearances count, that dealing forcefully with Jefferson’s scandal would help everyone else in the room. “You didn’t elect me emperor or queen,” she said. “You elected me leader.”

The Democrats overwhelmingly voted Jefferson off the committee. And in November, Americans voted Democrats into the majority, citing corruption as one of the issues that soured them on the GOP.

Today, after becoming the first Democratic speaker in 12 years and the first female speaker in the history of the House, Pelosi will offer a comprehensive package of ethics reforms, a down payment on her pledge to run “the most ethical Congress ever.”

The result:

The class of 41 freshman House Democrats has selected a registered lobbyist to form its political action committee, in what ethics watchdogs and Republicans are calling a contradiction of their promise to end a “culture of corruption” in Washington.

The custodian of the Democratic Freshmen PAC is William C. Oldaker, 65, whose most-recent lobbying clients include the oil industry, the tobacco lobby, pharmaceutical industries and American Indian gambling interests. Mr. Oldaker also has been removed from several Democratic PACs over conflict-of-interest concerns. […]

Nonetheless, some campaign-finance watchdogs say the connection shows the new Democratic majority is not pursuing ethics reform as forcefully as promised on the campaign trail.

“Isn’t the point to avoid even the appearance of impropriety?” said Naomi Seligman Steiner of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, when asked about Mr. Oldaker’s involvement in the PAC. “We’re not any more comfortable with it this year than we were last year.”

From US Libertarian Party

Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom