Sleazy Harry Loses One

The Senate today missed a bad one today proposed by the majority leader of the Senate. Reid in his own exceptional way is trying to clean up Washington by doing lobby reform. (You will remember that Roscoe Conkling argued that reform was a sanctuary for scalawags and scofflaws.) But Reid's definition of reform stomps all over the First Amendment. Among other things Reid's proposal would have included bloggers under the definitions of who is covered under lobbying reform. What Nonsense! Reid's biography in Wikipedia reads more like a rap sheet - with all of his ties to discredited lobbyists and tons of appearances of impropriety. Conkling was a New York senator who resigned when the Pendleton Act was adopted. (He complained about not enough patronage after the idea of civil service was adopted.) Thankfully, Reid's subtrefuge was rejected. There were six democrats (Baucus, Bayh, Conrad, Dorgan, Landrieu, Nelson (NEB), Salazar) who voted to stop an absurd part of Reid's plan. Unfortunately, both of California's senators voted the wrong way.