Lobby 'reform' provides a fig leaf to Congress

A weak lobbying reform bill, intended to give scandal-plagued Republicans in Congress some cover in the fall elections, narrowly passed the House Wednesday, 217-213. As the Washington Post points out, the bill falls far short of what the GOP promised last January, when Jack Abramoff was convicted of corruption and bribery. As cover, it's more of a fig leaf.

But it's still more than Wisconsin Republicans were willing to do in the legislature. They simply decided not to take up ethics reform.

In the House, eight Democrats broke ranks and voted for the bill, presumably to be able to say they voted for something in the way of reform. Wisconsin Reps. Tom Petri and Paul Ryan voted for it, too.

But Reps. Mark Green and F. Jim Sensenbrenner were among the 20 Republicans who voted no. Green, of course, is running for governor, which has made him more willing in recent weeks to vote against the party leadership -- and which has made the leadership more willing to let him do that, if they know the bill's going to pass anyway. But he has been a consistent, down-the-line party hack loyalist for eight years, and a few votes in the last eight weeks will not change the record.

The House version, of course, is different from the Senate's,which means a conference committee, which means who knows what will be in the final bill?