ACTION ALERT

Call Nancy Pelosi's office (202-225-4965 in DC and 415-556-4862 in San Francisco) and ask what Democrats intend to do tomorrow about the announced Republican changes to the House ethics rules.

Doing their customary end run around the ethics committee, House leaders are proposing to rewrite the provision as part of an overhaul of House rules for the incoming Congress. A draft circulated Wednesday to Republican members says the rule will be changed so that it won't apply if a lawmaker has otherwise followed "applicable laws, regulations and rules." Under the new rule, this catch-all provision -- which has caught some pretty egregious conduct in the past -- would be riddled with holes. No matter how slimy a lawmaker's behavior, it couldn't be deemed an ethical violation unless the ethics committee could cite a specific subparagraph of a specific regulation that was breached.

We have to stand up to this egregious hypocrisy.

Unless you want to hand these creeps even more of a moral blank check than they already have.
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