One of the key reasons for the Democrats victory this past year was attributed to the ethic problems in Washington. Even Bush admitted that. Now the Senate Republicans do not want to fix the ethic problems:

Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists’ influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.

The bill could be brought back up later this year. Indeed, Democrats will try one last time today to break the impasse. But its unexpected collapse last night infuriated Democrats and the government watchdog groups that had been pushing it since the lobbying scandals that rocked the last Congress. Proponents charged that Republicans had used the spending-control measure as a ruse to thwart ethics rules they dared not defeat in a straight vote.

“It’s as obvious as the sun coming up somewhere in this world that they tried to kill this bill,” a furious Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last night in an interview. “And all 21 Republican senators up for reelection are going to have to explain how they brought down the most significant reform ever to come before this Congress. They brought this baby down.”

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said insistence on a line-item-veto vote was proof that the GOP is serious about passing the toughest possible overhaul of the way Congress conducts its business. Efforts to give Bush power to strike individual items from spending bills have been struck down by the Supreme Court, but Senate Republicans insist that the latest version will pass constitutional muster.

Why are the Republicans so intent on being corrupt? Harry Reid has got it right – those 21 Republicans will have to answer to this in 2008. The fact that they are blocking something that should be so trivial is ridiculous. Citizens on this country are expected to obey the law or pay the price – our leaders must be held to the same standard.

I find McConnell’s excuse most troubling of this. Now that the Democrats are in power, the line item veto is a must? If this is so important, then why in the hell didn’t they pass it while they were in power? They could fly in over night to vote on Terri Schivo, yet couldn’t do this? The Supreme Court has already ruled the line item veto is not legal (it would require a Constitutional amendment). Of course McConnel and his party are not worried about legalities – hence blocking ethics reform. They sure didn’t have problems passing their record levels of pork barrell spending while in power either (right Ted “crybaby” Stevens).