Ethics reform bogged down in Congress
635381
Toughening ethics laws, once a priority of Democrats, has bogged down in Congress as party leaders find their campaign promises colliding with lawmakers' re-election concerns.
246655
Congress returned this week to a lengthy list of unfinished business and a late election-season opportunity to build on its meager record.
297352
Monday's indictment of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) touched off an ethics battle in the House yesterday, with leaders from both parties moving quickly against Jefferson even as they accused each other of having no real interest in tighter ethics rules.
227666
These are tough times for the Democratic-led U.S. Congress, where partisan battles have led to little progress on big issues and have made lawmakers collectively less popular than President George W. Bush.
296351
Time is running out for Congress to pass real reform before the elections. But a commonsense plan from an unlikely Congressman may be gaining momentum
230469
Congress wants to reform telecommunications and cable rules, but each branch has its own approach and neither covers all the needed bases.
668081
Efforts stalled in the U.S. House of   Representatives to pass a bill that would make it illegal to   obtain private telephone records surreptitiously, as was done   in the Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N scandal.
273231
Anxiety over the new House ethics rules ratcheted up this week as lawmakers' spouses demanded clarification of whether the rules apply to them, and eight House members backed out of a fundraising gala for a major theatrical company when ethics lawyers stated that they could not attend as guests.
470257
A congressional ethics committee approved about 50 subpoenas on Thursday as it launched a probe into former Rep. Mark Foley's contacts with teenage assistants in a sex scandal enveloping Republicans as they struggle to keep control of Congress.
605327
Democratic  presidential contender Barack Obama on Friday proposed ethics  reforms to reduce corporate and special-interest influence in  Washington, including tight restrictions on lobbying a future  Obama administration.
460396
Just two days after the House version of a sweeping patent reform bill passed the US House of Representatives by a voice vote - meaning the supporters were obviously louder than the opponents - the bill as reported to the Senate swept through the Judiciary Committee, most likely with very few amendments.
678106
Indictments and corruption scandals can mean one member of Congress's demise but become another's bounty, with key vacancies created on prized committees when ethics probes force lawmakers to step aside.
130310
For the first time since the Abscam scandal a quarter-century ago, multiple lawmakers face criminal and ethics investigations that are tarnishing Congress, already low on public approval.
662691
As Democrats and Republicans disagreed on the accomplishments of the 108th Congress, one thing is certain: Hundreds of programs &#151; from highway building to welfare reform &#151; are being kept on life support through temporary measures because lawmakers failed to meet deadline after deadline for renewing them.
506563
With House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) now involved directly or tangentially in a handful of ethics cases and investigations, some analysts say that another setback could substantially
180707
Republicans could face ethics investigations for contacting U.S. attorneys about pending cases, a jarring political development only four months after ethical lapses helped cost the GOP control of Congress
240506
The Judiciary Committee sought to slow down the effort to pass legislation on the treatment of terror suspects.