Good Advice for Nancy Pelosi from the New York Times

NYT Editorial: A Clean Start (emphasis added):

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Many of the Republicans who took control in 1994 saw themselves as reformers from the heartland. But their leaders soon convinced themselves that the Democrats were a force so evil that any effort was justified in keeping them at bay. To do that, they made lobbyists a regular part of the government as they traded perpetual access for campaign re-election money. They created an extraordinarily efficient system for running the House, in which even moderate Republicans were iced out of the decision-making process. Enamored with their own sense of virtue, they shut down the ethics process.

Ms. Pelosi has an excellent agenda that includes imposing an effective ban on all gifts from lobbyists — including free rides on corporate jets — and publicly disclosing the secret “earmarks” that get inserted into legislation on behalf of special interests before they’re passed into law. Those are both critical ideas that would indeed need to be passed on the first day, while the Democrats are filled with fervor and not totally focused on what they’re giving up.

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