Too important to wave the white flag

 

We saw a setback on the voting rights front this week, with attempts to pass voting rights legislation and changes to the filibuster both failing in the Senate. But despite this obstacle, we will keep pushing reforms to protect Americans’ freedom to vote — this issue is too important to wave the white flag on. And we’re also turning our attention to an issue that’s seeing some exciting momentum in Congress: legislation that would reduce the financial conflicts of interest for federal legislators. Last week, Sens. John Ossoff (D-GA) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) introduced a bill in the Senate that would require members of Congress and their families to place stocks into a blind trust. We’ve endorsed the bill, and the proposed rules have support across the political spectrum. The legislation also includes transparency requirements that would make it possible for the public and watchdogs like POGO to see if a lawmaker’s blind trust sells off a stock. This could also incentivize members to sell off stocks upon taking office, as POGO’s Walt Shaub explained on MSNBC recently. There’s a good chance this bill or another introduced by Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Chip Roy (R-TX) in the House could advance through Congress quite soon, so we'll be working hard to see these measures through. TESTIMONY Watchdog Report Makes Case For Pentagon Reforms Industry-written laws have led to even more defense contractor rip-offs; it’s time to fix the rules. Read More ANALYSIS The Pentagon’s Revolving Door Keeps Spinning: 2021 in Review In 2021, at least 36 officials left the Pentagon to join private defense firms. Those firms received over $89 billion in contract obligations in 2021. Read More QUOTE OF THE WEEK “This [pandemic] is a huge event that is causing pain and disruption in everyone’s lives. And it looked like there were some members of Congress who had advance knowledge of how bad it was going to be, and tried to use that knowledge to make sure that they didn’t feel as much pain as the rest of us.” Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, Government Affairs Manager, in Voice of America OVERHEARD ONE LINERS “[Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm]’s saying that she only just learned of the transactions … so it’s possible the ethics officials took that statement at face value.” Walter Shaub, Senior Ethics Fellow, in Insider   “This is on the government. These [KN95 masks] are sitting in shrink wrapped boxes, on pallets ready to go and ready to be used and it is in the middle of a pandemic where the public needs them.” Scott Amey, General Counsel and Executive Editorial Director, in KGW   “Congress exempted itself from the conflict of interest statute that applies to the executive branch, so they have nothing pushing them to divest stocks or to stop trading on the information that they had.” Walter Shaub, Senior Ethics Fellow, on MSNBC   “A lot of these lenders, they’ve made almost pure profit off of this program by basically letting fraudsters have access to billions of dollars in loan money. ... They probably won’t be held accountable, and it’s the bigger crime here, even though it won’t probably lead to charges.” Nick Schwellenbach, Senior Investigator, in Atlanta Journal-Constitution

pogo.org The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that investigates and exposes waste, corruption, abuse of power, and when the government fails to serve the public or silences those who report wrongdoing. We champion reforms to achieve a more effective, ethical, and accountable federal government that safeguards constitutional principles.

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