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Refilling The Swamp? 10 GOP Reps. Caught Up In Ethics Scandals

Refilling The Swamp? 10 GOP Reps. Caught Up In Ethics Scandals

Zero Tolerance? Not So Much.

After a well-publicized series of ethics scandals helped lead to Republicans losing the House of Representatives in 2006, newly-minted Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously promised to “drain the swamp” and then Democrats instituted a series of ethics reforms to clean up Congress.

When Republicans regained control of the House in the 2010 election, they promised a “zero tolerance” policy when it came to ethics problems.

Things haven’t exactly worked out as promised.  ThinkProgress’ Josh Israel has the rundown.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in 2010:

I think as the Republicans emerge as a new governing majority, it is incumbent upon us to institute a zero-tolerance policy. We understand there were reasons for our being fired in ’06 and ’08. Some of that had to do with ethics violations. I mean we had several members under public investigations during the time of the ’06 elections. I think we’ve learned that that’s not a good way to gain the confidence of the people and that we ought to be instituting a zero-tolerance policy here.

“We’ve learned our lesson,” Cantor told the National Review Online, “We cannot tolerate any ethics violations or behavior, in terms of compromising the ethics that the people expect us to have as their representatives.”

So, how are they doing?

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