It’s time to clean up the House of Republican Trash

By JOHN MORGAN
Onalaska, Wis.
LaCrosse Tribune

Just how tangled up in the GOP culture of corruption is suburban Milwaukee Congressman James Sensenbrenner? Sensenbrenner voted with Tom DeLay 89 percent of the time between Jan. 1, 2004, and March 31, 2005. Is this the kind of lock step government that working families deserve?

Sensenbrenner voted to weaken the ethics rules in a move that many say served only to protect DeLay. Does the integrity of the House mean so little that Sensenbrenner would sacrifice it to defend DeLay? When Republicans realized it was “impossible to win the communications battle” over the gutted ethics rules, Sensenbrenner flip-flopped and voted to put the old rules back into place.

So Sensenbrenner cares about the integrity of the House after all — when cable news is covering it. When Democrats offered a solution to clean up the House by strengthening ethics rules, Sensenbrenner voted twice to make sure it never even came to an up or down vote. So instead of a bipartisan effort to get government working for Americans, Sensenbrenner stood for cronyism and partisan politics.