[gkruCRi1]

My statement is not at all inaccurate.
(cites floor vote) . . . My title of this post is a fair statement to make.

Granted, the majority of the Dems voted against it. Some Reps did too. As the article stated, 9 Dems went with the DeMint amendment whilst 7 Reps opposed it. But it was not uniformly partisan, a fact that does not surprise me. Plus, I simply find the old Dem/Rep thing on this subject that effects everyone to be distractions and chestnuts that do not get or guarantee permanent results.

Here is what those who favoured the amendment said about it:

DeMint insisted that the Senate definition would catch only about 5 percent of earmarks, saying that in most instances lawmakers insert their pet projects not into the bill itself but into the explanatory report language that accompanies the bill and is not subject to a vote.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said that of some 12,852 earmarks found in bills last year, only 534 would be subject to Senate disclosure rules.

The conservative DeMint praised new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for backing the more comprehensive earmark rules that the House approved last week. "I'm here to defend her language on behalf of the Democrat colleagues on the House side. Those who wanted it tabled said:

"It's important that the Senate rules be amended slowly and with careful bipartisan deliberation," Reid said, stressing that the House didn't spend much time on their version and the Senate approach was "so much better."

Reid argued that his version was stronger than DeMint's in disclosing lawmakers seeking special tax benefits for a small group of people or an industry, and included language requiring lawmakers to certify that they had no personal stake in earmarks they support.

Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also said the DeMint provision was "unworkable" because it was so broad that it could be applied to thousands of projects included in federal spending bills. It seems to me that both sides are claiming there is something better about their positions whilst there is something hidden and amiss in the other's that leaves the situation much the same.

The point that I was trying to get at was the constant bickering that one party or another is somehow not living up to reform. I feel that is exactly what politicians want the public's focus to be on--partisan lines, and missing the Big Picture.

As I see it as explained, I doubt that DeMint and crew have had an epiphany since their own fiscal shenanigans whilst the held the Senate, and I don't think the Democrats have had that either since re-assuming control of the Senate. Both seem to be pointing out the flaws and hidden 'outs' of each other's proposals whilst claiming theirs is better but with the other side pointing out their flaws.

To me, this kind of bill battling seems to be the old 'robbing Peter to Pay Paul' game and/or shell game. Picking one of the two ways leads to the same results through different means, if what they all say on the matter is truthful insofar as the 'ways out.'

And if these bills and proposed amendments are scrutinised, it wouldn't surprise me if the bills and amendments are geared towards some partisan stuff too regarding how each does their business.

What would impress me is if both those who voted to add or table that amendment, if they are really concerned, is table the amendment and attempt a fusion bill that corrects the problems/loopholes alleged by each.

But, that did not happen, and it seems the public is likely going to be handed another reform bill that is merely a condom with a hole cut out of the top, making it useless other than to fool people into a sense of security.


And even if the bills do offer some reforms, nothing stops Congress from gradually pulling out the strings on them though later bills and amendments.

That is why I explained that I feel this subject would be much better handled if the public could wake up from its deep slumber and push for constitutional amendments of the kind I cited that currently exist in the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Amendments get right to the heart of the matter in mandatory terms. And since it was the public in Pennsylvania that clamoured for those cited amendments in the 1870s in a popular movement, accomplishing these ends is possible because it has happened before.

Expecting Congress to police itself is wishful thinking regardless of party affiliation.

For example, along with those cited amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution that the people demanded in a groundswell was another that stated that no laws varying the compensation (i.e., pay raises) for the services of the state Congresspeople shall take effect until an intervening election has taken place.

The state government once again did not do that on their own volition--the people made them do it by convention.

A similar provision now presumably exists in the US constitution:

The text of the 27th Amendment reads:

“ No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened. It was first proposed as the original Second Amendment to the Constitution in 1789. It finally was ratified in 1992.

If it took government, on its own 'integrity', 203 years to ratify something so basically honest as that, why in the world would it ever do something of greater integrity on pork and other shenanigans with bills? Heck, whether the 27th Amendment is really validly ratified is in question given the SCOTUS precedent that spoke on that exact amendment's construed abandonment over weight of time long before 1992 in Dillon v. Gloss 256 U.S. 368 (U.S. 1921).

To me, reform in government practice is a situation that needs the people to do it, and by demanding amendments to the Constitution to permanently require such things.