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The poor decisions of some in Washington, D.C. have raised
awareness to loopholes in the regulations for both lobbyists and lawmakers,
highlighting the need for comprehensive ethics reform. In Congress, Rep. Castle introduced his own
ethics strengthening proposal and advocated for policies aimed at greater
government transparency and accountability.
Such initiatives include;
- Ethics Reform for Members and
Lobbyists - Rep. Castle supported the House rules package, which
prohibits Members of Congress from accepting gifts from lobbyists or
organizations employing lobbyists, from traveling on trips financed by
lobbyists, and also requires annual ethics training for Members and
staff. Taking reform farther, he
introduced the Accountability and Transparency in Ethics Act that includes
mandatory ethics training for lobbyists, too. The legislation also extends the period
of time former members and staff must wait to lobby after leaving Congress
and includes several measures aimed at maintaining separation between
personal, campaign, and official funds and activities.
- Outside Ethics Commission - The
current process for addressing ethics violations through the House
Committee on Standards is not working.
As a result, Rep. Castle introduced legislation to establish an
outside Commission to initiate reviews of unethical conduct among
Members. The House recently enacted
a similar proposal, but it lacked one strong component included in
Castle's bill; giving the ethics commission the power to subpoena witnesses
for testimony.
- Earmark Expenditures - With over
$10 billion in earmarks in the recent omnibus, it is clear that something
must be done to reform this process.
Rep. Castle believes that the earmark process must be transparent
to eliminate wasteful spending requests, and has released his earmark
requests for the fiscal year 2009. He
supports a full moratorium on Congressional earmarking so all Members are
held to the same high standards.
- Public Financing - This
presidential race is predicted to cost more than $1 billion, an
unprecedented cost. The growing magnitude of money needed to run a
viable campaign is a barrier to run for office, which is why public
financing would provide increased opportunities. Castle supports the Presidential Funding
Act which would significantly increase the amount of public money
available to participating candidates, making the public financing system
viable. This would allow candidates
to run competitive campaigns without becoming overly dependent on private and
special interest donors.
- Defense
and Homeland Security Contracting -
In light of recent allegations of abuse on the part of government contractors,
Rep. Castle has successfully passed legislation to prevent defense contractors
for collecting unearned bonuses and to require companies to comply with the
same conflict-of-interest laws that apply to government employees. Most recently, Castle has also fought to
increase funding for the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland
Security Inspectors General, whose job it is to conduct audits and ensure
transparency with respect to the relationship between the government and its
contractors.
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