{"id":1803,"date":"2006-12-31T09:56:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-31T09:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html"},"modified":"2006-12-31T09:56:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-31T09:56:00","slug":"this-is-the-problem-with-congr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html","title":{"rendered":"This is the problem with Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No wonder they violate the rules, they get away with not even a slap on the wrist.  Democrats and Republicans take care of each other and don&#8217;t hold each other accountable to the law:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:100%\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:100%\">Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has &#8220;accepted responsibility&#8221; for possibly violating House rules by requiring his official staff to perform campaign-related work, according to a statement quietly released by the House ethics committee late Friday evening.<br \/>\nThe top Republican and Democratic members on the ethics panel, Reps. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.), said in a statement that Conyers acknowledged a &#8220;lack of clarity&#8221; in communicating what was expected of his official staff and that he accepted responsibility for his actions.<br \/>\n&#8220;[Conyers] agreed to take a number of additional, significant steps to ensure that his office complies with all rules and standards regarding campaign and<br \/>\npersonal work by congressional staff,&#8221; they stated. &#8220;<span style=\"font-weight: bold\">We have concluded that this matter should be resolved through the issuance of this public statement<\/span>.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe finding by the ethics panel could spark debate, and perhaps eclipse, the first week of the incoming-Democratic majority&#8217;s plans to change the House ethics rules, as well as raise questions about Conyers&#8217; standing to chair the Judiciary Committee.<br \/>\n[&#8230;]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:100%\">A spokesman for Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Conyers will remain chairman of the Judiciary Committe<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<br \/>\n<span class=\"body\"><span style=\"font-size:100%\">The Hill reported last March that two former Conyers&#8217; aides alleged that he repeatedly violated House ethics rules by requiring aides to work on local and state<br \/>\ncampaigns, and babysit and chauffeur his children.  Deanna Maher, a former deputy chief of staff in the Detroit office, and Sydney Rooks, a former legal counsel in his district office, shared numerous letters, memos, e-mails, handwritten notes and expense reports with The Hill.<br \/>\nThey also sent the same materials to the House ethics panel, the FBI and the U.S. attorney&#8217;s office. House rules allow the chairman and ranking member of the ethics panel to initiate informal inquiries into allegations of misconduct in the absence of a formal complaint.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"body\"><span style=\"font-size:100%\"><\/span><\/span>Read the rest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehill.com:8888\/thehill\/opencms\/TheHill\/News\/Frontpage\/121306\/conyers.html\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.drudgereport.com\/\">via<\/a>)<br \/>\nWhy should we follow their laws when they don&#8217;t even follow them?<\/p>\n<div class=\"tag_list\">Tags: <span class=\"tags\"><a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Congress\" rel=\"tag\">Congress<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/House+of+Representatives\" rel=\"tag\">House of Representatives<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Democrats\" rel=\"tag\">Democrats<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Republicans\" rel=\"tag\">Republicans<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Conyers+\" rel=\"tag\">Conyers <\/a><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No wonder they violate the rules, they get away with not even a slap on the wrist. Democrats and Republicans take care of each other and don&#8217;t hold each other accountable to the law: Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has &#8220;accepted responsibility&#8221; for possibly violating House rules by requiring his official staff to perform campaign-related work,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-under-the-sun"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>This is the problem with Congress - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This is the problem with Congress - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No wonder they violate the rules, they get away with not even a slap on the wrist. Democrats and Republicans take care of each other and don&#8217;t hold each other accountable to the law: Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has &#8220;accepted responsibility&#8221; for possibly violating House rules by requiring his official staff to perform campaign-related work,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-31T09:56:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"michele\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"This is the problem with Congress - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"This is the problem with Congress - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","og_description":"No wonder they violate the rules, they get away with not even a slap on the wrist. Democrats and Republicans take care of each other and don&#8217;t hold each other accountable to the law: Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has &#8220;accepted responsibility&#8221; for possibly violating House rules by requiring his official staff to perform campaign-related work,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html","og_site_name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","article_published_time":"2006-12-31T09:56:00+00:00","author":"michele","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html","name":"This is the problem with Congress - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-12-31T09:56:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-31T09:56:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2006\/12\/this-is-the-problem-with-congr.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"This is the problem with Congress"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/","name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","description":"Politics and current events from a Reformed perspective, by Michele McGinty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0","name":"michele","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"michele"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/author\/michele"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}