Over the past few weeks, your calls for an end to fat pensions for congressional criminals have gotten the ears of both sides of the U.S. Capitol.
By an 87-0 count, the Senate recently passed legislation that would abolish pensions for lawmakers convicted of the biggies: Fraud, bribery, conspiracy. Those are the financial crimes that lead to ethics disasters, like those of former Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, for whom the act is dubiously named.
And just last night in the house, freshman Democrat Nancy Boyda of Kansas filed her bill, H.R. 476, which looks a lot like the Senate version. It could pass if it comes up for its scheduled vote this Friday.
But this is Washington after all, so although the speed with which this legislation is moving is admirable to the rest of us taxpayers, the nitty-gritty exposes some "hole-e-mole-e's."
This is what many of you told us on
this blog: Any lawmaker convicted of any crime should be denied his or her federal taxpayer-funded pension.
This is what the bills say, in essence: Any lawmaker convicted of a very few specific felonies, like bribery and fraud, related to their conduct in office, should be denied a taxpayer-funded pension. So if you are convicted of any other felony, yes, even murder, you still get a pension.
Oh, and one more hole. If a certain lawmaker is convicted of a certain specific felony and does forfeit his or her pension, Congress must evaluate what the loss of that income would do to his or her family. If this would leave the lawmaker's spouse or children destitute, then special provisions should be made.
Congresswoman Nancy Boyda says, "Hey, it's a start." Yep, and there's a long way to go.
