(2007-01-21) Republicans Block Ethics Reform

Republican Party members of the US Senate blocked attempts at Ethics Reform. Ultimately its undoing came on an unrelated measure. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) demanded a vote on a measure long-sought by George W Bush that would allow the president to submit to US Congress a list of spending items the White House wishes to strike from congressionally passed spending bills. Congress would then be forced to vote on whether to sustain or accept those rescissions. Democrats argued that the measure had nothing to do with ethics and lobbying reform, but Republicans said their efforts were no different from the gambit that Democrats took last year, temporarily derailing a weaker ethics bill by demanding a vote against the takeover of U.S. port management by a Dubai-owned shipping company. Reid and Mc Connell worked to reach a compromise that would have brought the Gregg bill to a vote in the coming weeks, but that pact could not overcome the objections of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), an opponent of the Line Item Veto.