Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are promising to shake up the bewildering maze of rules, regulations, exceptions and loopholes that make up the current congressional ethics guide to dealing with lobbyists. But rather than adding to or simply rearranging the existing code, there is a simpler, more direct and likely more effective way to deal with the problem at the root of the ethics mess in Congress: Put the House and Senate under the same rules that now cover the White House and executive branch.
President Bush, and indeed every political appointee and career civil servant, must conform to the Standards and Ethical Conduct for Executive Branch Employees, which provides a straightforward set of ground rules on issues like acceptance of gifts, honorariums and the like. Created during the Reagan administration, these rules have worked well for executive branch employees for more than two decades and they will work just as well for the legislative branch.
