What's up, Doc? (It can't hurt to ask)

From Ilene Proctor:

From: David Donnelly, Public Campaign Action Fund
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 10:53 AM
To: Ilene Proctor
Subject: House Ethics: Stranger than Fiction

Dear Ilene,

In this Congress, the truth about ethics is stranger than fiction. And often, more elusive.

A congressman took a trip paid for by a corporation that he helped get a government contract, but he didn’t to disclose it – an apparent violation of House rules. And, what’s worse, the corporation’s employees were the congressman’s top contributor in the 2004 election.

Does that sound like reason enough to have the House Ethics Committee investigate him?

But what if that member of Congress was Doc Hastings of Washington state, the chairman of the Ethics Committee?

This is the man that is, so far, refusing to appoint an outside counsel to investigate Tom DeLay.

Enough is enough. Doc Hastings should step down from his Ethics Committee chairmanship and support the appointment of an outside counsel to investigate the House lobbying scandals.

Call him today at (202) 225-5816.

Hastings is standing in the way of an independent investigation into DeLay, who has given him $5,930 in Political Action Committee contributions, and trying to appoint his chief of staff from his congressional office to head the nonpartisan Ethics Committee staff, contrary to Committee rules.

Now we find out he’s failed to disclose trips paid for by a corporation to which he’s steered lucrative government contracts and from whose employees he’s received $10,200 for his 2004 election.

He should resign as chair immediately and support the appointment of an outside counsel. No ifs, ads, or buts. Call Hastings’s office today at (202) 225-5816.

After you’ve called, give us a sense of how the call went at the Daily DeLay.

Thanks,

David Donnelly
Public Campaign Action Fund