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Mar 16, 2007 -- Legal Center Weekly Report: March 16, 2007 Legal Center Policy Director Meets with House Ethics Task Force
On Tuesday, March 13, Policy Director Meredith McGehee met in informal session with the House Ethics Task Force. The bipartisan Task Force, appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), is examining whether an outside ethics panel should be established in the House. McGehee told the Task Force that the current system is dysfunctional, has lost credibility with the public and does not serve Members of Congress and staff well. She encouraged the Task Force to consider establishing an Office of Public Integrity within the House to investigate allegations of ethics violations by Members. The task force, headed by Representative Michael Capuano (D-MA), is scheduled to report back to the Speaker by May 1.
The March issue of The Political Standard, the quarterly newsletter of the CLC Media Policy Program, is now available online. Articles include:
- Repairing the Presidential Public Funding System: Bipartisan Consensus on Proposed Solutions
- Lobbying and Ethics Reform Still Pending in the House
- Election Costs Add Up (commentary from Meredith McGehee)
- FCC Commissioner Copps: A New American Contract
The latest edition of The Political Standard is available here .
This week, Representative Marty Meehan (D-MA) announced his retirement from Congress. During his tenure in Congress, Rep. Meehan championed the causes of campaign finance reform and led the fight to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.
In a statement issued after his announcement, Meredith McGehee stated , "Marty Meehan put his commitment to democratic ideals before party loyalty, personal advancement, or political expediency. From the moment he arrived on Capitol Hill he was willing to take on the powers that be and to champion causes and issues that many of his colleagues shied away from because they were unpopular with leadership - that was never Marty's measure."
Rep. Meehan will leave the House in July to become Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Legal Center Blog Highlights
Each week, the Campaign Legal Center staff posts blog entries on its site, www.clcblog.org . Click to read this week's entry: " Vote Suppression and the Gonzales 8 Scandal ," " A victory against whom? ," or " Mismatching Funds Meet Mismatching Arguments: A Response to Mark Schmitt "or to sign up for blog updates, click here .
To read a variety of this week's editorials and articles on a variety of Campaign Legal Center issues, please click here .
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