Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation

Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation: "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.'"

(Via AMERICAblog.)