Glass Houses: Congressional Ethics And The Politics Of Venom

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9780813341613
• ISBN10: 0813341612
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

While members of the House and Senate confront the public's changing attitudes toward money, sex, and power, they are also forced to raise ever-escalating sums to finance their campaigns. Practices tolerated a decade ago now may cost lawmakers their seats or land them in jail. Lawmakers often don't know if they live in Salem or Gomorrah. Using new information culled from dozens of Capitol Hill interviews, Susan and Martin Tolchin show how ethics in Washington have changed over two centuries while offering new interpretations of past ethics cases. The first book to analyze the politicization of the ethics process,Glass Housesreveals in wicked and telling detail the forces that drive the modern lawmaker into a maelstrom of fierce corruption battles.

Author Biography

Susan J. Tolchin is a professor of public policy at George Mason University’s School of Public Policy. She was elected a fellow and board member of the National Academy of Public Administration. In 1997, she received the Marshall Dimock Award from the American Society for Public Administration and the Trachtenberg Award for Research from George Washington University. Martin Tolchin, founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of “The Hill” newspaper, reported on Congress during most of his 40-year career at the New York Times. His numerous awards include the Everett M. Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting on Congress. Mr. Tolchin also received three Page One wards from the Newspaper Guild of New York, and awards from Sigma Delta Chi and the NYC Citizens Budget Commission.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	ix
Acronyms	xiii
The Ethics Wars	1	(20)
The Gingrich Era	1	(8)
Partisan Politics	9	(1)
Recent Battles	10	(1)
Changing Mores	11	(2)
Discretionary Justice and the Ethics Committees	13	(2)
The Future of Ethics	15	(3)
Bookends to an Era	18	(3)
The Apple and Other Temptations	21	(14)
In the Beginning	21	(5)
Expulsion	26	(1)
An Eye for an Eye	27	(3)
Let Those Without Sin...	30	(2)
Leaving the Garden of Eden	32	(3)
Joe McCarthy and the Ethics Process	35	(14)
The Reluctant Senate	35	(6)
Powell, Baker, and the Evolution of the Ethics Process	41	(3)
The Birth and Baptism of the Ethics Committees	44	(5)
Abscam and the ``Keating Five''	49	(12)
Abscam	49	(2)
The ``Keating Five,''	51	(1)
Corruption or Constituent Service	52	(6)
How Politics Prevailed	58	(3)
The New Rules of the Ethics Wars	61	(16)
``Mr. Sam,''	61	(1)
``If You Go After a King, Kill Him,''	62	(4)
Power No Longer Protects	66	(2)
Pay Raises Cost Votes	68	(1)
Anger and the Decline in Public Confidence	69	(2)
Absent Public Wrath, Congress Will Avoid Ethical Tangles	71	(6)
Sex---The Sin of Hypocrisy	77	(24)
The Packwood Case	85	(5)
The Charges	90	(3)
The Process	93	(5)
The Committee's Position	98	(1)
Grains of Truth	99	(2)
Torricelli, the CIA, and the Intelligence Committee	101	(14)
The CIA and Congressional Ethics	107	(3)
Torricelli and Nuccio	110	(1)
The Ends and the Means	111	(4)
Forgery---The Case of the Purloined Stationery	115	(10)
The Noble Lie---Modern Ethical Dilemmas	125	(18)
The Nethercutt Ads	128	(4)
``Noble Lies,''	132	(4)
When Lying Fails	136	(5)
The Future of Lies	141	(2)
The Politics of Venom	143	(12)
Appendix A, Summary of U. S. Senate Sanctions	155	(4)
Appendix B, Summary of Expulsion, Censure, Reprimand, and Ethics Procedures in the House of Representatives, 1798--1999	159	(6)
Notes	165	(14)
References	179	(14)
Index	193