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Sens. Obama, Feingold: 'Clean Up the Corruption'
Sen. Russ Feingold plans to introduce legislation Monday with Sen. Barack Obama to strengthen ethics laws for members of Congress.
"This could be one of the best moments in many, many years, in terms of ethics in Washington," Feingold said in a telephone interview Monday.
The bill by Feingold, D-Wis., and Obama, D-Ill., would, among other things, ban lobbyists and the groups that employ them from making gifts to members, create an Office of Public Integrity to investigate ethics complaints, and ban a member from negotiating for future work as a lobbyist.
The Senate plans to take up the issue this week.
"I'm real optimistic that we're going to get at least major elements of it passed," said Feingold, a longtime champion of increased ethics in government. ". . . It's very clear from the election results that people, as a prerequisite for our doing other things, want us to clean up the corruption."
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But Feingold said he wouldn't be surprised if Congress had to revisit the issue down the road even if it approves his plan.
"That's the nature of the game," he said. "You've got to find the abuses, find where they're trying to get the loopholes, and close them up. It's the nature of the system: it encourages people to try to find ways around the rules. But if we're tough, we can minimize the damage."
© 2007 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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